Acupuncture for Neck Pain- Longmont, CO
Dealing with chronic neck pain?
Dealing with chronic neck pain is simply awful and it can often be totally debilitating. Just feeling the pain itself seems to zap half your energy for the day (if not more). And then trying to get comfortable at night to properly rest and sleep can be a nightmare in and of itself. So this usually means you get fatigue and insomnia along with your chronic neck pain.
What can make this worse is not being able to fully turn your head. This can mean difficulty driving or potentially problems with virtually every task you perform throughout the day from turning your head to talk to a coworker, leaning over the sink to do dishes, or just trying to drive your car.
If you have nerve impingement along with this, you may even experience pain and tingling down your arms. What make make this even worse is having numbness in your hands which can further impact your sleep and just make the pain and exhaustion worse.
Fortunately, acupuncture is one of the best therapies available for chronic neck pain. Acupuncture decreases pain and can help improve range of motion. It relieves the inflammation the causes pain and nerve irritation and promotes circulation which also helps in relieving pain and numbness down your arms and hands. Acupuncture effects are cumulative which means you can experience relief or even corrective results for prolonged periods of time following your treatment course.
Benefits of acupuncture for neck pain?
So what do patients tend to report after they have acupuncture for their chronic neck pain? The most common responses is that there is a decrease in their pain within a few sessions. Most also report feeling looser muscles and ease with moving their neck. With a proper course of treatment, most patients report that their pain relief lasts long term.
Poor range of motion is also very common when suffering from chronic neck pain. Many patients report being able to turn their heads further and being able to look around without experiencing pain. In some cases, patients report getting back to perfect range of motion after a course of treatment.
Many patients also report improvements of the side effects of neck pain. In some cases, this includes poor balance, which often gets better with acupuncture treatment. People who experience radiating pain down their arms or numbness in their hands also report improvements or even elimination of these pains.
Additionally, many people report decreases in headaches associated with neck pain and better sleep due to less pain at night.
Does acupuncture help with neck pain?
The scientific consensus is yes! Large scale analyses done by the Cochrane Database indicate that acupuncture shows good efficacy for a variety of neck pain conditions and is a safe and cost effect therapy. The types of neck pain included in these analyses are acute neck pain, chronic neck pain, chronic neck pain due to arthritis, neck pain with radicular signs (radiation into the arms; nerve impingement), chronic myofascial neck pain and chronic mechanical neck pain.
How many sessions of acupuncture do you need for neck pain?
The number of acupuncture sessions needed will vary based on a few factors: the cause of the pain and the length of time you have had the neck pain. For example, someone who has suffered severe arthritis for 10 years might need more treatment than someone who acutely sprained their neck from a motor vehicle accident.
In general, many subacute neck pain conditions will often find significant relief or even resolution within 6 acupuncture treatments. For those experiencing chronic, long term neck pain, 10-20 treatments may be needed.
In most cases, patients will see decreases in pain and improved mobility within 1-3 acupuncture treatments.
How long does acupuncture last for neck pain?
With a proper course of treatment, the effects of acupuncture can be very long lasting or even corrective. The research shows that even after completing a course of acupuncture treatments, pain relief often last for many months without further treatment. In some research, upwards of a year past treatment, patients still report that their pain is reduced or eliminated.
An appropriate course of treatment can be recommended in your initial consultation. In some neck pain cases, the issue can often be resolved in 5-6 treatments. Though long term neck problems may take longer to resolve, we have seen some patients have results that last for months or years beyond their treatment period.
