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Chronic Neck Pain 3 of 3
Issue: Chronic neck pain, continued…..
Solution: The 66 year old client I am working on is an avid book reader. He drives for a living and reads in the car while waiting for customers. He cannot, however, lift the book up for any length of time because of his shoulder injuries. So, he lays the book in his lap and flexes his head and neck for long periods of time to do what he loves, read. This has led to hypertonicity and adhesions in the muscles in the front of his neck. The right side is worse simply because the right first rib is more superior. The hyoid has moved to the right and this is pulling his jaw to the right. He reports that his neck pain can lead to a temporal headache at times. First, I did an SMRT move to release the ligaments of the hyoid. I got some release, but not all. I then massaged the anterior neck muscles, using SMRT to release each of them in turn. Left over was tremendous deep tension, so I used my fingers on the right side of the trachea, contacted the vertebrae, and moved into a position that would release individual fibers of longus colli. I had to do this move three times. Then I went back to the hyoid and re-released the ligaments. This time the tension melted. Now that the vertebral ligaments and the anterior neck muscles were released, the rest of the neck responded quickly, and the realignment of the hyoid had released most of the tension in the jaw. After the hour long massage, the client felt tremendous relief. He hopes it lasts forever, I look forward to seeing him and his neck again in a week or two.
