In one of my past blogs, I talked about elbow pain, which can sometimes be referred to as neck pain. So, I wanted to talk more about referred neck pain, some ways on how to tell it’s coming from the neck, and what are the things you can do to manage it.
What Is Referred Neck Pain
The neck is super interesting. In our spine, we have our spinal cord and out of the sides of our spine, we have nerve roots that come out. These are combined together to create the long roots that run from our spine all the way to our fingertips and all the way down to our toes. So, when things get irritated at the spinal level, you can start to have some referred pain. The pain is not actually at the spine and it is somewhere else in your body.
The neck and the low back can do that, too. For this blog, we will focus on referred neck pain.
The Common Places Where You Might Find Referred Neck Pain
The number one spot that I find referred neck pain is underneath the shoulder blade. It can be painful and can sometimes be described as a buzzing sensation. Was happens is people get really focused on the pain being there and try to alleviate the pain in that spot rather than where it is actually coming from, which would be the neck.
Another spot that the neck tends to refer pain is on the side of the shoulder, your elbow, and sometimes even the carpal tunnel region. I’ve hand patients in the past diagnosed with carpal tunnel or tennis elbow and it actually ends up being a neck issue.
Ways To Tell If The Pain You Are Having Is Coming From The Neck
If you are moving your neck or head around, and you are noticing pain underneath your shoulder blade, side of your elbow, or your wrist, it might be coming from your neck.
Another way to tell if it might be coming from the neck is if you have been in a sustained position for a long time with your head and neck. If you have been staring at the computer or your phone for quite a time, you tend to be in a more forward head posture. Being in a sustained forward head posture can irritate the nerves in the back of your neck causing that referred pain.
It is not bad to be on the computer or texting or scrolling through your phone, but you need to create more movement so you are not in those sustained positions for a long time.
Also, if the pain is happening while you are playing a sport, it can also be referred neck pain. In my experience, when I play tennis and I serve with my right hand and look up towards the ball, I am actually closing down everything on the left side of my neck. I started having pain in my left shoulder and realized it was from the service motion and looking in a direction that was closing down the joint and putting more pressure on those nerves.
There is nothing inherently wrong with serving and doing that motion but sometimes the repetitive strain in that area can irritate the nerves.
Ways On How You Can Help If You Determined It’s The Neck That’s Causing These Issues
Like what I mentioned earlier, what you can do is to move. If you are in a sustained position for more than 30 minutes, you are going to want to get out of it. Anytime you do something in a sustained position for a long time and you are not moving, it can cause irritation.
The best example I can give is when you are carrying a bunch of grocery bags. If you bend your elbows and you are holding these bags for five minutes, your biceps are properly going to be pretty tired and might even feel painful. So, you want to keep moving your body throughout the day in moving positions. Particularly if you are experiencing a bout of pain, you really have to keep moving. Even if you do not feel any pain, I always encourage movement.
Strengthening the muscles between your shoulder blades is also another way to help if you determined that the pain you are feeling is referred neck pain. When you can draw your shoulder blades together, it will help to put your neck and head in better alignment on top of your spine. Having yourself in better alignment is going to open up all of the spinal foraminal on the side of your vertebrae. The foraminals are where the nerves actually come out of. When you create an opening there, it is less likely that the nerve is going to be irritated because it is not jumbling around there on your bones.
Although some people have an opening there and never be irritated by it or not have any pain at all, this strengthening and opening of the spinal foraminal is necessary when you are having an episode of pain so the nerves do not continue to be irritated.
Some ideas for strengthening the muscles between your shoulder blades include rows. You can do them with a theraband pulling back or bent over with a weight. Anything can be productive in getting those muscles stronger.
Mobility in your neck is also one way to help with referred neck pain. Doing stretches can help to open up that space on your neck so the nerves do not get irritated and refer pain to different points in your body. Another thing you can do with mobility in your neck is slowly rotating your head side to side looking over your shoulder or slowly looking up or down. You can also do a prolonged stretch by tilting your ear towards your shoulder and stretch the opposite side of your neck.
If you are in a prolonged position such as when you are playing tennis and you are repetitively looking up, I find that hanging out in a prolonged position for two or three minutes will help with that. What I did with my tennis game as I mentioned above was lie on my stomach and look towards the left. I had my arm reaching overhead so that my body started to get desensitized to that position and the nerves were no longer irritated and I had no pain in my shoulder anymore.
Conclusion
When you have pain that is not in your neck and it is coming from your neck, the idea is you try to get the pain back into your neck. You might notice that as you are doing these things, the pain and sensation in other points of your body are already gone and the pain is happening in your neck. That is actually a good sign. In physical therapy, we consider it as a good sign when the symptoms start to centralize in the area that is actually causing the issue because it means we are steps closer to making it better. When this happens, you want to continue doing the movement, strengthening, and mobility tips I discussed earlier because that means the neck is getting better.
If you are having trouble managing these symptoms on your own, definitely go see a physical therapist. They are great at seeing what you are doing and helping you. It is sometimes difficult to diagnose yourself, figure out what is going on, figure out the proper exercises, or figure out the proper therapy techniques you can do to help alleviate this pain. So it’s definitely better to check in with a physical therapist if the pain persists and not getting any better.