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Comment by nope96 | Hacker News Reader

I ended up with a devastating sudden neck injury that seemed computer related. Had noticed when I'd go to turn my neck, occasionally it would not actually turn, and I'd hear a 'crunch' noise. No pain. One day, it did hurt, and for the next year I could not really sit or stand without feeling extreme neck fatigue after a few minutes.

10 years later I have not fully recovered. Doctors couldn't help (or see anything wrong on MRI), but said a lifetime of sitting in front of a screen 8 to 12 hours a day was probably the culprit. Solution was, unfortunately, to quit working. I'm typing this sideways laying down on a couch. If your neck starts to act funny, give it a rest!

(Building some contraption with PVC pipes as in this article had not occurred to me, but it seems like it would just lead to other muscles being overused, instead, with new injury somewhere else eventually)

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I had a similar experience getting out of the military. I had a known back injury, but nobody could tell why it was manifesting the way it was. I eventually ended up at a sleep doctor because I refused to be put on opioids but could not sleep. I was put on Gabapentin, or rather over-dosed as this use was off-label. The physical therapist noticed a change in my range, and that my back could suddenly "pop" and release tension. Three years later a chiropractor discovered the source of my sciatic nerve pain: a fractured disk that had healed over my sciatic nerve that caused all the rest of my muscles to tense up. My life is mostly normal now that I have some tools to cope with the discomfort when it creeps up, allowing me to head off any potential pain.

I guess my point in sharing this is that nerve pain can be very hard for doctors to diagnose, much less treat, but don't give up.

How did the chiropractor discover that? Did they get imaging done?

I was wondering the same. In France chiropractors are not doctors and do some magic/voodoo/mistakes manipulating your body.

This is different from a kinesitherapeut who uses information from doctors or imaging to make sure documented movements.

You get reimbursed for the latter but not for the former.

The chiro had an x-ray machine and it managed to pick it up

Even with a standing desk you can have issues from doing nothing but one thing for too long. I've had a PT recommend I take a break to stretch my wrists, walk around, and focus my eyes to infinity every 20 minutes or so. I bet almost no one is bothering with that; its no wonder so many people have chronic pain when they've spent their entire life being generally inflexible, sitting for long periods of time in a small handful of positions, and hardly ever walking around.

Have you as a therapy tried strengthening your core/serratus muscles as a therapy?

Sort of. I'm not sure what muscles were being targeted, but I went to two different physical therapists who both showed me the same set of exercises.

I did not see any improvement, (the second time things briefly got worse), but I admit I get frustrated quickly, and did not stick with it long enough. I was never sure I was "doing it right."

Thought about trying again, at home, but I don't know what is safe to try. When this started, I'd bought a neck pain book (written in the early 2000's) that had example exercises. I showed the 1st physical therapist (a PhD), and he said "Oh no, don't do those exercises, we don't do those any more. That will make things worse!". So I'm leery of trying random youtube video exercises... and due to Covid, not quite ready yet to go to in-person PT again.

Yeah, there is a lot of stuff floating around. I tried 3 therapists for a similar type of ailment and none really worked, the last one was best by just guiding me slowly as you do need to “build up” back to a body functionality. For me it was walking properly (heel to toe) that slowly got me back into normalcy.

Brent brookbush is pretty good institute that helped me gain insight with a strong evidence based focus. YouTube channels tend to be copycat videos that really don’t address all the different options and modalities.

I've had similar issues and started with simply lying down and holding my head a few mm off the ground and holding for 10 - 30 seconds. You may have to begin with only a few seconds if your neck is very weak and build up very slowly.

Beyond that simply doing more exercise helped, I stopped focusing on my neck specifically after the initial stage. Swimming is great since it reduces load.

Yeah, this was actually one of the exercises I was shown, but it was explained that a key part was that I did NOT use certain muscles while doing it.

I don't remember exactly - but the idea was, if you could feel them bulge in the front of your neck as you lifted your head, you were doing it wrong - you did NOT want to use that muscle group.

(I should have taken notes when doing PT, I wish I could remember all this now)

Strengthening the muscles is definitely the answer, the only question is which muscles actually became injured and weak. PT is changing pretty fast these days so I expect it's hard to find a good one that's up to date.

As general advice, almost everyone these days has some variation of upper crossed syndrome given the way they use laptops and phones, so upper and mid lats, rotator cuff muscles and some neck stabilizers are weak, which leads to slouched posture. I can't say this is specifically the type of corrections you need, but hopefully this useful routine will help otherd avoid such problems (I'm not affiliated it's just a good video):

https://youtu.be/i1tjJGGcoYs

It’s a good video if you are coming from far.

Changing your habit is another good idea. Standing desk/platform, 10 minute break every hour and walking around, juggling, just moving a bit.

The problem for me was that intermediate stage where the earlier practices stop providing benefit. Which is good by itself, it means the practice worked! But you also are not at a normal healthy level yet.

Working on your posterior chain becomes more important in my experience, like lunges, walking upright and heel-to-toe, and something like foundation training (look it up- really innovative)

Find a running club near you and see what PT they recommend. Even finding a gym/trainer they recommend may do wonders. They will focus more on functional strength and mobility (in my experience).

This literally just happened to me. I'm currently doing PT for it.

sounds like osteophytes to me

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