I was away for a few days, because, well, life is a pain in the neck. Long weekend, freezing rain and chopping ice off the sidewalk, skating on the pond and a 24 hour flu. But enough excuses, onward.
I’ve written about tech neck and migraines, but there’s another neck pain problem I’ve suffered down the years, cricks in the neck. You know, that awful, pinchy, stabby pain in the neck or back. You can’t turn your head because it hurts too much. You can’t stretch it out, you can’t massage it out, you can’t heat or ice it out. All you can do is sleep it off, but it hurts so much you can’t get a good night’s sleep to sleep it off.
Yeah, that pain.
Along with the headaches and migraines I suffered those things for years and the normal the time for them to go away was about five days. Then, after about a year of Ashtanga yoga, I noticed that I they had all but stopped, and when I did get one, it eased off after a single night’s sleep.
I did the same things; Advil for the pain, Voltaren cream for the swelling and a heat pack along the spine, centered on the knot itself. The difference is that now, instead getting a little relief to help me sleep, it’s actually cured. Gone. Vanished.
The funny thing is, I don’t really know how yoga cured them. All I know is, that particular pain is no longer a limiting factor in my life.
Cross posted at Medium.com.
