Do you find it difficult to unbutton your shirt?
Does it hurt at your neck when you comb your hair?
These may be primary indicators of underlying cervical pathology.
Here are some quick tips to ease your neck pain at home.
1) Practise neck and shoulder rotations regularly. This can be by bending forwards, stretching backwards and by clockwise-anticlockwise rotations. Neck nodding (side wise) are also beneficial.
2) Posture correction is important especially if you are working in computer for long periods of time.
Take a 10 minutes break every hour so as to retard the pain as well as relax your joint. This will also help you to focus on your work and improve its quality.
3) Adopt proper posture while sleeping or sitting. Change the bedding or seating to meet your comfort.
4)Avoid lifting heavy weights and doing strenuous workouts.
5) Apply warm *sesame* or *ksheerabala* oil on your neck giving a gentle or no pressure massage. Take care that you don’t give a vigorous pressure massage as this can aggravate the pain. Massage in circular motion rubbing vertically from above downwards.
This will help you relieve stiffness and pain. This can be practised on an everyday basis followed by hot water bath.
6) Dietary changes like including milk, ghee and leafy vegetables will help you tame Vata – the culprit of pain according to Ayurveda.
7) Yogasanas which will involve neck movements like bhujangasana, matsyasana, ardha matsyendrasana, setu bandhasana helps you in relieving the pain. Meditation and Pranayam can also add to the benefits.
Now let me tell you what exactly happens in Cervical Spondylosis – A common causative factor for the neck pain.
CERVICAL SPONDYLOSIS is a degenerative cascade that happen in your neck region usually because of the age related changes which start developing insidiously.
Causes
The causes of cervical spondylosis are all related to the degenerative changes which occur in the intervertebral disc, vertebra and ligaments of the neck.
Intervertebral discs which are cushions between vertebrae begin to dry up and dehydrate as the age passes by leading to friction between the vertebrae thereby irritating the emerging nerves.
There can also be cracks appearing on the external surface of the disc because of bulging and cause herniation of the gel like substance from inside the disc. This may impinge the nerve root arising from spinal column resulting in severe pain.
Vertebral changes may include growth bony spurs as a misguided effort to strengthen the spine inspire of degeneration which may also press spinal nerve roots. Ligamental degeneration makes the neck stiff and painful.
Symptoms of Neck Pains
Pain and stiffness of the neck and shoulders are the important signs which are elicited in patients at its early stages. Gradually it can lead to a radiating pain affecting regions to which respective nerves supply. This on a long run can even make it difficult to lift your arms to do your daily chores thereby restricting your movements.
Tingling sensation and numbness of arms are also prime signs indicating CS.
Sometimes neck and shoulder pains are associated with recurrent headaches and fatigue.
Weakness and disability of arms and hands can result from severely compressed nerve roots causing permanent damage to the nerves.
Ayurvedic Management of Cervical spondylosis
Treatment of CS in current mainstream is very limited in conservative as well as surgical aspects and hence not satisfactory.
In Ayurvedic parlance greeva graha (stiffness of neck) manya stamba (stiffness and pain of neck) and viswachi (radiating or referred pain of hands and arms) are the stage wise correlations to CS and all of these are caused due to imbalance in vata and kapha doshas.
At Shathayu we aim to get back the equilibrium of these bodily humours by a multidimensional approach focusing to uproot the disease rather than providing symptomatic relief.
Treatment of CS at Shathayu
We follow our unique way of customized treatments which is been practised for more than a hundred years after analyzing the your bodily constitution.
External and internal body oleation measures (SNEHANA), Fomentation procedures (SWEDANA), Oil retention techniques (GREEVA BASTI), Medicated enemas (BASTI) and errhines (NASYA) are attuned to your specific needs with a wide variety of herbal and mineral combinations. In early stages the disease can be retarded with custom made treatments.
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