Neck cracking/stiff



  • as well as needing to crack it eg. first thing in the morning, it often feels stiff. and as it says at the top of this forum, doctors dont seem to understand! my doctor just tells me a stiff neck is fine, but it blatantly isn't!
    lol!



  • as well as this normal cracking, i have another problem which i hope someone here can help me with.
    It involves turning your head to the left and right. Since i got thumped in the back, i have noticed the following symptoms, although i may have had them in some form before:
    i cant turn my head to the left very far without it starting to hurt. i can turn my head to the right a reasonable amount but it "clicks" not really a crack. this is only when i turn my head to the right, and is very annoying. any ideas why this happens?

    thanks guys in advance, i hope to find some replies when i check here next 😎



  • How long have you been experiencing this?



  • a few years now. :oops:



  • turning your head to the left/ right is called lateral rotation.
    it is good to do this every day
    several times a day
    SLOW
    breathe into the stretches and hold them for a while
    your mobility on the R will improve as your L neck muscles get more flexi
    As you get older neck pain becomes more common
    especially from sleeping
    thats why you want to keep your neck flexible and mobile
    To avoid stiffness
    Yes I get cracks and pops nearly every time I laterally rotate my neck also
    Perfectly normal.



  • These small cracks - do you mean when you turn your neck and move back - as soon as you start to move back it cracks?



  • Or when you reach a kind of limit where like a stiff rough pain/ache prevents you from willingly moving further + you can't really?



  • @Blaze:

    These small cracks - do you mean when you turn your neck and move back - as soon as you start to move back it cracks?

    exactly - this is what i get when i turn right.



  • @Blaze:

    Or when you reach a kind of limit where like a stiff rough pain/ache prevents you from willingly moving further + you can't really?

    and thats just general feeling when i turn left.



  • Ok, well i am no body expert or doctor - i'm just a student studying things that are not related to this except biology.

    But i guess that maybe it is caused by the effort to get those small cracks or when you stretch your neck so far to get a crack that isn't there because your neck aches that when you move it back you have moved it so far, it kind of lodges against something or other etc.

    With the rough ache, hmmmm, well a friend of mine used to crack his neck to the extent where he has restricted movement. So maybe this is the feeling he described?



  • thanks for your help… i guess that would make sense with the sore ache... i just wish i never got a bad back/neck in the first place, its messed my life up man :evil:



  • There may be one other thing i am able to help you out with:

    Is your neck stiff all the time, cracked, uncracked etc?



  • How old are you, bod?



  • @Blaze:

    There may be one other thing i am able to help you out with:

    Is your neck stiff all the time, cracked, uncracked etc?

    generally, yes…



  • @jpad:

    How old are you, bod?

    very nearly 18, but i've had clicking joints from about 14..



  • Ok Bod8 - this is what i am pretty certain you have.

    Ok i have said it before but since you are a new here i will say it here so you don't have to go look for it.

    I feel you may have hypertension in your neck which is when your tendons (imagine are like coiled springs) are, over a time, uncoiled and weakend so that they go floppy. Thus, meaning that the muscles in the neck have to take on more weight to sustain the stability.

    Go to your gp and tell him/her. See what they see. If it is what i say, ask for neck strengthing excercises.



  • but i pretty much have told my gp(s) this and they still wont do anything. i have to go again anyway so i might mention it though.
    oh that reminds me, are you allowed to mention 2 different issues at an appointment? i never was at my last surgery 😞



  • I guess so. Yes must do because i often do - i am ill quite a bit.

    Well then, either the doctor is ignorant of this or he is lazy and didn't do it.

    Believe me it works because i told somebody to do it and he told me what happened.



  • Blaze …. coiled springs? Tendons are made up of STRONG parallel
    muscle fibers. No springs or coils. every one has different ROM limitations. Some peoples tendons/muscles are more flexible than others for many reasons. Perfectly Noraml.

    But nobodys springs are uncoiling buddy. 😉



  • Yeh but the image is of a spring.

    The constant cracking is weakening it - ask a physiotherapist - they can tell straight away.

    Why do people always get stiff necks - clearlY! that isn't what nature intended is it - to cause that amount of discomfort by allowing us to do something that supposedly does no damage


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