I'm so frustrated!! I've had neck (trap)and upper back pain for almost a year now. It would come and go. Now it is "going" almost constantly. I went the medical route first....muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatory drugs and rest....for about 2 weeks. It helped temporarily. (I HATE taking muscle relaxers....they make me feel tired and lazy!)The minute I stopped taking them and tried to swim, it came back.
I went to a chiropractor. He did X-rays and said my neck was straight. It is supposed to have a slight backward curve...sort of a natural "shock absorber" for your spine. He also said my neck (cervical spine) is shifted big time to the left.....explains why it hurts on the right! :doh: He said my trap muscles have been doing all the "shock absorbing" and had many knots in them on both sides. He also said my pec muscles were too tight and pulling my traps I've been going THREE times a week to get adjusted by the chiropractor. I've been stretching, icing and not swimming. The only thing that has helped is massage...and that's not in my budget! It doesn't seem to be getting better.:shakeshead: :cry: I finally went "swimming" Thursday to try to stretch it out. The doctor said it was ok as long as I didn't push it! I thought I would just kick a lot. I did try to swim some EASY strokes. It tightend up real fast! I ended up kicking on my back and doing a lot of vertical kicking in deep water. Any advice?
Parents
Former Member
Two things I've found to help (although my neck pain is very secondary to other issues I have to I found these for the other issues first): swimming wiht a center mount snorkel it lets my neck muscles relax and sometimes I even find stroke changes that stretch my upper back a little, Feldenkrais http://www.feldenkrais.com/ Classes are quite inexpensive and then you can use books and DVD's at home, it seems hokey when you start but hte results can be quite amazing not all classes are listed on this website so do some checking locally, the movements are so gentle at the least they fall in the do no harm catagory.
Two things I've found to help (although my neck pain is very secondary to other issues I have to I found these for the other issues first): swimming wiht a center mount snorkel it lets my neck muscles relax and sometimes I even find stroke changes that stretch my upper back a little, Feldenkrais http://www.feldenkrais.com/ Classes are quite inexpensive and then you can use books and DVD's at home, it seems hokey when you start but hte results can be quite amazing not all classes are listed on this website so do some checking locally, the movements are so gentle at the least they fall in the do no harm catagory.
