Best remedy to relieve a crick in the neck? (1 Viewer)

Hi all,

All day today I have been suffering the worst neck crick I have ever experienced. I know I had to have slept incorrectly the night before, Anyway, anytime I turn my head to the left or lean to the left I get a severe pain in one of the muscles close to the back. Tylenol has not reduced or relieved any of the pain, and I am actually unable to sleep tonight because of it.

What is the best remedy that I can use so I can get some friggin relief and get some sleep?

Warm compress is good. And tylenol will do nothing. There is some swelling associated with that so take something with ibuprofen....like Midol (just kidding:b ). Any antiinflammatory drug would do. But take it with food.

I get knots in my back and neck all the time and some of them would be so horrid that it would really limit what I could do. Anyway, my aunt is a massage therapist so I go to her twice a month for a massage and it really works wonders. Of course drinking more water also helps, but the bi-monthly rub down keeps the muscles a bit looser and prevents them from knotting.

get a massage and drink lots of water. You might also want to visit a good chiropractor..in fact look for one that has a massage therapist on staff and goto both.

A good tenz unit works great also. I know the feeling only too well from this type of injury, I think one time I did a real number on my neck doing some military presses behind the neck with too much weight, lol!

Kyle -- have you looked into anything in your ergonomics at home or work that could be causing your knots? I had pretty wretched tightness in my neck (to the point that I was getting headaches at the end of the week) after I got my new monitor at work, and my chiropractor suggested that I move it up a few inches. Worked like a charm.

I have a friend who is a PT. When I had a sore neck he had me completely relax that muscle while he applied pressure in a specific spot for about two minutes. When he was done the pain was about 90% gone. I Wish I knew how he did this. Unfortunately he lives about 1000 miles away now.

Oddly enough, I have a "crick" in my today too. Going to my chiropractor in a couple of hours. Works every time! (and its covered by my medical benefits!)

Sometimes a 'crick' in the neck is because we lay in bed wrong. Take a look at your pillow. If it's too high, the body is usually laying at an unnatural angle. It might be worthwhile investing in one of those contour pillows. Too much computer and mouse usage could also be the culprit. Your computer screen needs to be at eye level. Besides those things, a lot of the time for some reason, neck problems are related to stress/anxiousness. We sometimes unconciously hold our bodies, especially shoulders, neck (and our breath!) tight when we're feeling angry or defensive and feeling under attack and so the muscles go into a spasm and lock. Take a look at - is someone in your experience being a 'pain in the neck' and/or have you felt under attack or rejected recently? A friend of mine got a crick in the neck within hours of going for a job interview and being told he was unsuccessful. He admitted to feeling the rejection and feeling defensive. These cricks will usually go on their own as the tension/stress dissipates and your mind focuses on other things and I can see people have suggested hot showers and warm compresses which do help. When you're doing either of those things, you're head will normally be tilting towards the painful area (so as to cause minimum pain). So, if the crick is on the left side of your neck, as the hot water is beating on the sore part, get the fingers and palm of your hand on the ok side of your body to gently pull the head towards the ok shoulder - a little at a time. This will pain a little but the pain will decrease with each movement. At the same time you are doing that, breath out and focus on dropping the shoulder on the sore side. Do the other side the same way. Another thing that has worked with me was just to lay flat on your back on the floor for 10 minutes. Breathe deeply from the belly and concentrate on relaxing your shoulders. You can purposely make them drop. You can even do this simple thing if you're at work.

Thanks for the info. My "crick" was 8 years ago (according to my post) and its fine now! Of course, a near-fatal motorcycle accident didnt help me much (except the CT scan showed that I HAD BROKEN MY NECK in high school 20 years earlier...that was creepy) Otherwise, my neck is fine. Travis, how is your neck doing 8 years later?

Developed a stiff neck Fourth of July morning. Couldn't turn my head hardly at all to the right.

Now, four days later, I've got most of my range of motion back; I can turn my head all the way to the right, with only moderate pain. But the pain has spread to my shoulder, back, and right arm -- probably because of the weird positions I was sitting in to accommodate the stiff neck.

During the day, it's maybe a 3 or 4 out of 10 on the pain scale -- very manageable. But at night, I can't seem to find a comfortable position. While I was off work for the holiday, I just stayed up until I was completely exhausted; I didn't sleep great, but I slept. Tonight, trying to get to bed at a reasonable hour for work, I just haven't been able to fall asleep at all.

So here I am, complaining on the HTF at three in the morning.

Talk about resurrecting zombie threads...

But it caught my eye because I get these a bit too often for my liking, and to make matters worse a crick in the neck often turns into a full-blown migraine for me. I'd echo the observation that it's often caused by "sleeping wrong". To avoid that, is a matter of finding the right pillow, and not having the bad luck to put yourself into a sleeping position where your neck is in the "wrong" position and it develops into a crick overnight.

To answer the question, though -- muscle relaxant drug: orphenadrine citrate, one trade name is Anarex and there are others.

Best remedy to relieve a crick in the neck?

Click to expand...

Divorce!

After another bad night Tuesday, I medicated myself to sleep last night. Probably slept 6-7 hours, but still felt like a zombie all day.

The neck is 95 percent better, but the back and shoulder are still really tight. Hard to say how much the discomfort is the cause of my sleep issues, though; I have a history of insomnia, and July tends to be a bad month for it, for whatever reason -- maybe the long days and short nights, maybe the the heat, or some combination of the two.

Thanks for the recommendation on the muscle relaxant, though; if I'm still stiff and tight on Friday, or I have a bad night again tonight, I'll try and get in to see my doctor.

I’m thinking back to the last time I had a crick in my neck, the kind that hurts for days. It’s been many years now, though, and about the only thing I can attribute this to is that I took up running within the past half-decade. Building neck strength does wonders.

After a bad night last night, I went to my doctor today. She put me on a stronger NSAID twice daily and a muscle relaxant for night time. So hopefully that will do the trick.

Didn't realize until this how much worse insomnia is when you not only can't get to sleep, but you also can't get comfortable in bed. It makes an already long night that much longer.

As Lois Lane once said...

1. Cold packs, NSAIDS, rest
2. See the doctor, get Rx NSAIDS and muscle relaxants
3. See neck specialist, MRI, maybe EMG, check for disc issues
4. Physical therapy
5. Dosepak (prednisone)
6. Injections
7. Surgery

Watch for stress, muscle tension can compres nerves and cause problems.

Sometimes a herniated disc can be acute and you need to jump quickly to steps 2-4.

Mostly, rest and some medication fixes things.

Saw the doctor Friday. She put me on 500mg of Naproxen twice daily, and then 750 MG of the muscle relaxant Robaxin at night, as needed.

The first night (Friday), the Naproxen gave me terrible diarrhea, so I didn't sleep too good that night either. The last few days, I've done the Naproxen in the morning with my breakfast, and two Advil just before I go to bed. My GI system seems to handle that a lot better.

I was so exhausted Saturday night that I took one Advil PM, one regular Advil, and a Xanax (had the same bottle for probably 4 or 5 years now -- very rarely use this one). That put me right out, but I was groggy Sunday so I probably won't repeat that combination again.

Last night, I took just the two regular Advil and the Robaxin and slept probably 4-5 hours, which isn't too much worse than a normal Sunday for me. So I was pretty happy with that.

Interestingly, on the nights I've taken the Robaxin, I wake up on the opposite side of how I usually sleep (on the injured side). That pays dividends the rest of the day, because while my left side is a bit stiffer than usual, my injured side got a bit of breather.

Tonight, I'm going to go with a 5mg Ambien and the two regular Advil. I normally take Ambien a couple a nights a week, and then take nothing the rest of the week. I'll probably alternate the Ambien and the Robaxin until this thing gets better, just to keep the insomnia at bay.

I'm thinking I might need a new mattress as well, but I don't want to make a big change like that until my sleep schedule is back to normal.