When acute neck pain strikes, take action! (By "acute" I mean neck pain that's just happened, rather than chronic neck pain.) Learn how to lessen pain, speed healing, and keep it from "settling in."

This advice assumes that your neck issues aren't caused by serious injury, nerve damage, or any of the other neck pain red flags that you can learn about here. If they are, please call your medical doctor for advice.

And don't do any of the things described below if they make you feel worse, or if they conflict with the advice of your doctor, chiropractor, or physical therapist.

Heat or Cold for Acute Neck Pain?
If you've had an actual injury--whiplash or a neck muscle strain--ice it.

In nearly all other cases, you'll want to use gentle heat for neck pain relief.

But in any case, your initial efforts at icing or heating should be short and mild. See how you react, and then adjust accordingly.

You can learn more about the specifics of icing and heating at this page on my site.

Keep It Moving
Studies show that mobilization is one of the best actions you can take to speed muscle healing. Keep an injured muscle moving--a lot--and with the most range of motion you can muster without causing yourself pain.

Neck circles will do just fine--or you can try more discrete movements: bend your neck forward and back, lower your ear to shoulder, and turn your head from side to side.

In cases of injury or severe pain, that may mean that at first your movement is tiny, tiny, tiny--barely perceptible. In some cases, it may mean that you just move your eyes--left, right, up, down--because the neck muscles tend to engage when the eyes move. Even tiny movements will help.

As you are able, increase the range of motion slightly, so that your stiff neck slowly returns to more and more range of motion.

The more you mobilize, the better. I'm talking a lot--maybe ten times in each direction 6-10 times a day.

Just be gentle, and make sure you're not causing yourself pain. If your neck pain worsens, back off and move it more gently--but still move it.

Trigger Point Therapy for Acute Neck Pain
Muscle pain and stiffness often has a trigger point component. Often, complete relief can't be achieved unless you deactivate the relevant trigger points. Learn what trigger points are and how to self-treat trigger points in the neck here.

Professional Massage for Acute Neck Pain
Often a professional massage can help lessen the pain and speed healing when your neck "goes out." I know this is my own experience, both as a recipient and a giver of massage.

Massage can definitely play a role in whiplash treatment. Especially in the early stage, lymphatic massage can help reduce swelling and speed healing. It's especially useful because (usually with a doctor's OK) lymphatic massage can be started before any other kind of manual treatment is advised.

If you live in Tacoma or the Puget Sound region of Washington, I am experienced in helping people with neck issues, and would be happy to help you with either traditional massage, trigger point therapy, or lymphatic massage.

More Neck Pain Resources
Here are some more resources for stiff neck relief and pain relief:

• Get information on a wide range of long-term neck relief techniques at this site's Neck Pain main page.

• If you're considering neck surgery, you owe it to yourself to spend $14.95 for Paul Ingraham's e-book, "Save Yourself from Neck Pain." It's chock-full of great, scientifically based information about neck pain causes and treatments. Who knows, you might just avoid surgery. And wouldn't that be nice!

I wish you ease and comfort in your neck, and I am confident that you will be able to help yourself feel better.

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