Are you looking for help for a possible neck arthritis situation? If you find that you have a stiff, achy neck, and you have trouble turning it, its been bothering you for a while now, then this might be the right video to help you out.

I’m going to cover the top five signs of neck osteoarthritis, commonly known as arthritis. It’s a little different from rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic arthritis, there are many different variations of arthritis. But the most common one, by far, is osteoarthritis.

My name is Dr. David Middaugh, I’m a Physical Therapist and owner of El Paso Manual Physical Therapy, and I help people all the time with neck arthritis problems.

So, let’s get into the top five signs that you’ve got neck arthritis.

#1 Consistent Neck Stiffness

The way this looks, and feels is, that if you turn your head to one side, and it just doesn’t go as far as the other side. The one side turns well and the other one not so good, or both are limited, that happens occasionally too.

You find that over the past year or several years, your neck stiffness as increased, and you can’t turn as far, and you notice it most when you drive and you check your blind spots to change lanes, or turn, you just can’t go as far. And you may find yourself twisting your back more. If you’ve had consistent stiffness like this, it may not hurt at all, it just may feel as if you can’t go as far. If this has been happening for more than three months or longer, maybe even years, then there is a high likelihood that you’ve got a neck arthritis problem.

#2 Shoulder Pain

Commonly, we see people who have neck arthritis, that also develop shoulder problems. Occasionally they have a really bad one, such as a rotator cuff tear, impingement problem, a nerve issue that comes off their neck and begins to affect the shoulder. But they’ll complain about shoulder pain. Especially when they lie on that side or use the arm – and its not always on the side that they are limited to.

In other words, if you have trouble turning to the right, you would think that its always going to be the right shoulder, and it does happen more often then not, but it can affect the other shoulder, especially if it’s a nerve related issue. Because if the nerves are affected in the neck, it’s a right side, or a left side of problem, if can affect the nerves on the opposite side as well.

#3 Trouble Sleeping At Night

If you have been trying different pillows, different mattresses, different sleeping positions, and you just have restless nights, loosing hours, and hours of sleep weekly because of the stiff neck problem, this arthritis problem, there is a very high chance that you’ve got arthritis developing in your neck joints.

I can tell you right now, its most often, nine out of ten times, not a pillow problem, and not a mattress problem. Getting a better pillow or mattress, may take the edge off and allow you to get a little extra sleep, but its not going to cure the neck arthritis problem for the long terms.

#4 Pain Medication Stopped Working

You may have been able to take the edge off, taking a Tylenol, or Ibuprofen, of some similar over-the-counter kind of medication, but you found that it doesn’t do anything anymore. You have been taking them regularly, or as needed, and it doesn’t do anything for you anymore. You get at the end of the day, or you get at the end of the night, and the neck still feels achy, stiff, and painful, and you have trouble turning, and sleeping hasn’t gotten any better, and you are thinking of going to the doctor’s office to get some prescription strength medication.

In some cases, there might be people that are taking prescription strength medication already, for neck problem, or worse, they have had injections into their spine for their neck problem, and it didn’t’ make any difference at all. It maybe took the edge of for a little bit, but they are still having trouble turning their head, and sleeping better at night, and feeling decent throughout the day.

If that’s you, pain medication has not been working for you anymore there is a very high likelihood that you have a neck arthritis problem.

#5 Stretching Hasn’t Helped

You may have thought “well, I can’t turn this way, let me stretch it into that direction and see if it will move better” and it just hurts, and its uncomfortable to move in that direction. Maybe you feel like some pinching or burning sensation in the neck area. Maybe your shoulders are getting affected by these stretches. Its more uncomfortable than helpful to do the stretching, then there is a very high chance, that this is a neck arthritis problem, and stretches aren’t going to get you the relieve that you are looking for.

So, you are probably thinking “Well, what do I do? If I have neck arthritis, if I have three, four, or even five of these signs that you’ve just talked about, what do I do next?”

Here at the clinic, at El Paso Manual Physical Therapy, we help people with neck arthritis all the time! There can be many different factors that contribute to the neck arthritis problem, so its hard to tell you over a video like this, exactly what to do at home, and exactly what’s going on in your neck. Of course, we would need to do a proper assessment, we need to feel the joints. We also look at the nerves, your muscle strength, your ligaments, also if you have done any sort of MRI or X-Rays, we would need to look at those as well, to see how affected your joints are, to get an idea of what’s the possibility of this processing 100%.

You might be thinking, “I’m old! I’m in my 50s, 60s, or beyond, this is part of getting older, I get arthritis! I’ve got arthritis in other areas, so now this is getting affected.”

Even if you are a little up there in age, we have cases here all the time that improve, despite bad looking MRIs or X-Rays. They get to the point where they can sleep at night, they don’t have to rely on pain medication, their motion comes back, driving becomes easy, they can turn and check the blind spot without any problems.

It’s a matter of getting to the root of the problem. Which, in most cases, is a multi-faceted situation. There are many things to look at, and properly address, so that that individual with a severe neck arthritis problem, can find long term, lasting relive. Without having to rely on pain medications, or resort to painful injections, or having to have a surgery for this neck problem.

If you are looking for help right now, I invite you to download our free Neck Pain Guide click here to download the “The Top 10 Tips For Neck And Shoulder Problems”.

If you are interested in getting help by us, if you would like us to do the work for you, we would love to talk more about that. Call us at 915-503-1314 and tell us all about your neck and shoulder problems.

We would be happy to speak with you and see if we are the best people to help you out in this situation.

I hope that we can be a part of your success story in relieving your neck arthritis situation, and preventing surgery, ending having to get injections, and not having to rely on pain medications for the long term, so that you can enjoy life to the fullest, and not have to worry or think twice about your neck problem.