Nothing is worse than starting your day with a pain in the neck. Even worse sometimes it can lock up and leave you with a very limited range of motion.
Sometimes this happens while you sleep and you wake up like this. Other times you just move your head and something lets go in your neck and you instantly feel the pain and stiffness.
Wry neck is characterized by some common symptoms like pain, stiffness, limited neck motion, muscle spasm, and sometimes referred pain into the head, shoulder, or upper back.
One symptom that is usually not related to this is consistent shooting nerve pain down into your arm, hand, and fingers. If this is what you are experiencing it is more likely that you are suffering from a pinched nerve.
Although wry neck can cause very sharp pain it should not travel past your elbow.
There are many different conditions that can cause wry neck, but if this is something new to you, it’s most likely that you have acute facet syndrome.
Your spine is lined with facet joints on the left and the right and allows for smooth motion. Sometimes they can become acutely irritated, and due to their high sensitivity, they can cause severe pain.
The natural course of healing for this type of neck pain usually is around 14-21 days. In really bad cases and with re-aggravation you may look at closer to a month.
I personally love using chiropractic for treating this as I can decompress your neck to the point where it alleviates the pressure and spasm around the joint. Also, the adjustment and other techniques can help considerably with regaining movement in your neck. It may not go back to 100% right away but you should have more range of motion.
Deep massage and heat are two things that you want to avoid in the first few days, as this will increase the inflammation and make the condition more drawn out.
In the meantime, before you can get in and see your chiropractor, try these few things that I talk about in the video below.