Pinched nerve neck pain can be debilitating, and some who experience it elect to have surgery to fix the issue. Rarely surgery is necessary, but it comes with risks, expense, and an extended recovery period. Before seeking surgery, those who suffer from neck pain should try less invasive methods. In many cases, a pinched nerve is the direct result of disordered sleep and can be cured with simple interventions and physical therapy.
Pinched nerve neck pain is called cervical radiculopathy. It means that a nerve along your seven upper vertebrae is damaged, usually due to nerve root compression. The telltale sign of cervical radiculopathy is pain that radiates from the neck. The pain travels throughout the length of your nerve, pinging in your arm, upper back, shoulders, and chest. Your fingers and hands may be affected, too. Tingling, numbness, poor reflexes, and muscle weakness are all common. You may also experience painful headaches as a result of cervical radiculopathy. Headaches resulting from neck pain are called occipital headaches because they affect the occiput—the posterior (or back) of the head.
As it turns out, sleep disorders negatively affect your sleeping position, and this can worsen cervical radiculopathy. People who suffer from sleep disorders have difficulty sleeping on their backs, which puts strain on their spines and can cause damage over time. Sleeping on your back supports your neck and upper back when you experience the deep relaxation of REM sleep. If you sleep on your side or your stomach, your unsupported spine bows, which throws it out of alignment and puts strain on it and the exiting nerves.
The first step to treating your cervical radiculopathy is to have your sleep evaluated by a doctor. During your evaluation, your doctor may suggest you have a sleep study, to monitor your breathing, sleep patterns, and position while you sleep if you have problems with your sleep.
If sleep disordered breathing is present, it may be mild, and treatable with a special mouthpiece to help open up your upper breathing passages at night. If breathing problems during sleep are severe enough, you may need a CPAP breathing mask at night (continuous positive airway pressure). If no sleep disorder is suspected, your doctor can help you learn how to sleep in a position that does not put strain on your neck, and at the same time help you get appropriate physical therapy to help you with your neck pain. The key is finding the root cause of the pain. Once the root cause of your neck pain is determined, then appropriate treatment can be started.
The focal points of any physical therapy program will be reducing pain, increasing mobility, and building strength of the correct rotators of your shoulder blade. During physical therapy, you’ll do targeted exercises that help you achieve better posture and take pressure off of your neck. Some physical therapists employ a technique called cervical traction, which reduces the pressure on your nerve with gentle stretching, though this is only a temporary fix.
In most cases, the combination of sleep disorder treatment and physical therapy is extremely effective. It heals cervical radiculopathy and the underlying sleep disorder, allowing patients to live pain-free without surgery.
At Rowe Neurology Institute, we have the most current diagnostic tools, and a staff of neurologists and integrated caregivers who specialize in back and neck pain. We’ve treated thousands of acute back and neck pain patients and helped them recover without surgery.
What can I do If I can’t come to the Rowe Neurology Institute in Lenexa KS?
Dr. Vernon Rowe has two web-based informational websites that provide in-depth information about each of the neurological conditions that we specialize in, including informational videos with transcripts that are unlike anything else on the web–they are NOT SPONSORED by any pharmaceutical company or other commercial entity. These are DOCTORROWE.COM and ThatNeurologyDoc.com. The information provided will help you navigate your care wherever you go, with knowledge about the questions you should ask your doctor, and the tests that may be recommended, as well as some tips on how to obtain cost effective care, wherever you live.