Top 5 Treatments For Pain Relief From A Neck Disc Herniation

Have a herniated disc in your neck and caused severe pain. And trying to get natural pain relief is always of concern for people because there’s so many non natural solutions like pain medications, injections, and of course procedures like surgery. In this video, I’ll be showing you the top five treatments for pain relief from a neck disc herniation.

The first exercise is called the chin tuck with rotation. And the reason why the chin tuck is so important, let me show you on the skeleton here is because when you do a chin tuck motion, it’s like a double chin motion, you use muscles that are on the front of the neck here, and they connect to the bottom of the skull. And they helped to keep the neck bones aligned properly so that it forces uniform motion through the neck.

The reason why the chin tuck motion is so important, it’s the same as the double chin motion is because when you double chin like that, you do that chin tuck motion, you use muscles that are inside the front of your neck behind your throat, and they attach to the bottom of the skull on the front, so that they can put the neck bones in proper alignment and make the neck bones move uniformly, which takes pressure off the disc herniation.

So to do this properly, you need to make a slight double chin just like this. And then you’re going to do rotation. So holding a slight double chin about a 50% double chin, you’re going to rotate all the way as far as you can comfortably one way and push it into a slight stretch. And then you don’t need to hang out there. Just get there. And then come back to the middle make sure your chin is tucked again about 50%.

And holding the chin tucked as you rotate, go the other way as far as you comfortably can just get there for a moment as well. And you’re going to repeat in both directions. So slight double chin and turn and do this 10 times to each side. And what you’re doing here is getting the right muscles, those deep neck flexors to activate as you rotate and just reset every time you’re back in the middle so that you can make sure using the right muscles when you turn your head.

Avoid pain when doing this because it can be that if you turn one way it hurts. If you do have pain at the end of a certain rotation, you know going right or left, stop right before it and just hang out there for a moment. A second is plenty of time. And then come back and go the other way and focus on the directions that you can move without more in discomfort.

The second exercise is more of a stretch using this pillowcase. So I’ve got a pillowcase here. And you’re going to fold this in half the long way just like so. And then do it again. Fold it in half again. So you have more of a band and then you’re going to twist it up a few times. To make it like this, you’re going to put this around your neck to move your neck joints.

But to show you what you’re doing here on the skeleton. Usually, a herniated disc happens in the lower part of the neck like C five c six, that’s the most common place to do it, you’re going to put this around your neck, I’ll show you myself, like so. And get this up higher on your neck so that you can force motion to happen in the segments in the in the joints above where you have the herniation.

So you’re trying to get these joints right up here to move better by pulling the towel or you can use a towel as well. In this case, you’re pulling a pillowcase, and you’re forcing these joints right here to open up so on myself. Here’s what it looks like you’re going to wrap this around your neck and pull this anchor one side down.

And then I’m going to pull this over and across. And you know I kind of came on twisted, the more you twisted, the more it gets focused. So you can untwist it if you feel like it’s too hard on your neck. I want a little bit stiffer on my neck. So I’m going to pull from here on the top part, this is going to be anchored down you can pull it down on your chest, but I might be covering up my mic, I don’t want to do that.

So I’m going to rotate this way. And as I rotate my head to the left here, in this case of pulling with my left hand over to the left, and trying to keep a little bit of a chin tuck motion to manage letting my head go over but I’m trying to maintain good posture through my neck and you can hold them bounce there 10 to 20 bounces is good. You can adjust the pillowcase or towel to a higher or lower position and you feel like you need it and hang out here for about a minute or two.

You don’t need to do this for very long at all before you go to the other side. Now some people do get a lot of benefit from this. If you want to hang out longer than that, that’s okay. Just make sure that it’s not hurting you and you feel like it’s relieving pain and discomfort from your neck. So I’m going to go the other way. twist this a little bit more like so.

Anchoring down with my right hand with my left hand this time and pulling over to the right with my right hand as I twist my neck and pull the joints over each other so that I can get them to own stiffen this trick alone this treatment or this stretch exercise whatever you want to call it is super valuable in freeing up stiffness in the upper part of the neck.

You can Don’t go lower in the neck with this, but I advise against it if you’ve got a herniated disc in your neck, because the most common places to get herniations are in the lower neck. And oftentimes, that part of the neck is actually loose already. So you don’t want to be stretching a loose part of your neck. And like I said, If this bothers you don’t do it stick to the other things that feel good for your neck.

The third thing here is going to be shrugs shrugging, like this, using your shrugging muscles is very important for offloading the pressure going through the discs in the neck. And you have to be able to do that chin tuck motion that we talked about the beginning of the rotation.

When you do that double chin motion, just like so you activate those deep neck muscles that gives your neck stability and helps you to decompress the discs inside your neck while keeping that chin tucked, reach up and shrug your shoulders and maintain that chin tucked in.

If you let your chin go out like that, as you probably want to do, it’s going to add compression to your neck. So it’s important that you start with a chin tuck, then shrug up and maintain a chin tuck. And it’s a bit of effort to keep the chin tuck. But that’s part of what needs to happen. Your deep neck flexor muscles need to get stronger in order for them to do their job at unloading your discs.

Now as far as how to reach up, some people say Well, should I have my arms extended all the way up like this or bent? It doesn’t really matter what’s most important is that you shrug fully. In fact, I have some people that have nervousness symptoms like numbness, tingling or pain going into their arms. And I’ll tell them don’t straight now your arms all the way because it’s going to add stretch to the nerves.

So keep them slightly bent and shrug like this, just make sure you’re next in the right position. And in that bent position, it tends to not aggravate nerves if you have nerve problems, because you can get a pinched nerve from a disc herniation in your neck. Now I recommend doing holds for this one. So you’re going to hold for 10 seconds, slowly count to 10 and then do 10 reps. And you should feel like you’re shrugging muscles are getting a good workout.

That’s what’s important, you should not feel like you have increased pain, you shouldn’t have any numbness, tingling pain going down the arms either, it should just feel like these muscles on both sides work in a little bit of those deep neck flexors that are behind your throat, not these big muscles right here, this is called the sternocleidomastoid or the ones that are above your collarbone, those should not be working.

Now the fourth one here is called angel wings. This one’s a little bit more complicated, it does require some flexibility in your shoulders. But try this out, it can give you some massive relief because what you’re targeting here is the joints below the disc herniation. Usually the herniation is in the lower part of the neck, and you’re freeing up the upper part of the neck with that pillow case stretch.

But how do you free up the lower part of the neck this is the almost the upper back. This is where people often get what’s called a dowagers hump a little hump or bump that’s formed right here in in this part of the neck right here, the upper back lower neck. And that bump will form because of those weak upper trap muscles, the ones that you’re working on when you shrug, but you can also free up the joints to start to straighten it out.

It can’t always be straightened out and everybody but in younger people like usually under 65, they can actually make a difference in the position of the bump if you get the strength necessary. And if you get the mobility through the joints of the spine in that area in here’s a way to do it with this angel wing motion, you’re going to put your hands over each other like so.

And then you’re going to put your hands over that spot of your back, right there where the bump is, once your hands are over, and it doesn’t matter which one’s over some people switch some people keep it the same, then what you’re going to do is keep that good double chin posture about a 50. And maybe a little bit more, you might need to go 60 or 70% double chin here.

And then while pressing with your hands against that spot on your back and maintaining a double chin, you’re going to shrug a bit and open up your elbows as far as you can hold it for about three seconds, and then relax, shrug and open. Three seconds in relax and I’m simultaneously pushing right here.

So I’m pushing down right here, shrugging up, opening up and maintaining my double chin making sure I don’t lose it by looking up or letting my chin get out. You might even find that it’s painful when you do that, but it’s less painful when you hold your chin in and you push on that spot. Do this about 15 to 20 times as long as it’s not hurting you. And you should feel like you loosen up that lower part of the neck, upper part of the back right where the bump is.

If you have one of those bumps I’ve heard patients call it a buffalo hump, camel hump all kinds of different, not nice things, but it can be improved. And more importantly you can loosen it up to help you get better mobility through your neck and take pressure off your herniated disc. And the final thing to work on here is a chin tuck posture.

Now this is more of a posture that we’re talking about, what you need to become aware of is what’s your neck resting position. This is important for those disc herniations. Because if you tend to sit or stand with your chin, you no slouch like this with your chin more out this way they call it a forward head posture, it’s going to put a bend in your neck, that tends to compress the discs in the lower part of the neck where people tend to get disc herniations, like C four or five c, five, six, C, six, C seven, those are the discs that are here, here.

And here. When you go forward like that, you just add pressure to those discs. And then if you live like that, if that’s your normal posture, and you turn you look around, you’re driving this way, if somebody calls you, you turn around, and your head’s going to sticking out forward like that, then it’s going to aggravate those discs even more, you can begin to get your posture better by trying to stay in a chin tucked posture.

Now I’ve told you to do that, like 50% 60 or 70%, especially on that angel wing exercise, but at a baseline for your normal posture. Like if you’re just sitting having a meal, if you’re watching YouTube, if you’re watching television, if you’re driving, you should have a 10 Maybe 20% Slight double chin. And if you feel self conscious about your double chin, know that your health in your neck is tremendously more important than the appearance of another chin.

It’s super important that you take pressure off that this because you’re saving yourself from some serious problems later on. Possibly an unnecessary surgery, if you can tuck that chin down slightly five 10% 20% If you feel okay to do so, and maintain that posture and turn from there. If somebody calls you do that, of course, if it’s unsafe, like if you’re driving, and you check your blind spot, then do what you have to do to get there you don’t want to crash. But otherwise try to keep your head in a good posture and a tip about driving with posture.

If you can get your head to the headrest by doing this kind of a motion and maintain your head touching the headrest. That’s usually great work for those for those neck muscles, those deep neck flexors that will help you to keep a better posture. If you work at a computer, try to keep that that same posture. Have a timer in place that helps to remind you on a frequent basis.

Ask for help from friends family, ask people to tell you when your chin is getting out or when you’re when your hump your dowagers hump is starting to show more so that you can improve that posture and straighten out your neck and get the discs offloaded so that you can heal for the long term. Hope this video was helpful for you.

If it was please give us a thumbs up share this with somebody you think needs to hear this. And don’t forget to subscribe and turn on your notification bell so you don’t miss out on any of the helpful videos. We post each and every week. Thanks for watching. I’ll see you in the next video. Bye