Top 6 At Home Treatments To Begin To Naturally Heal Cervical Radiculopathy

Cervical radiculopathy, otherwise known as a pinched nerve in the neck has the potential to heal 100% naturally doing things at home so that you can avoid surgery and get back to feeling normal again.

In this video, I’m going to show you the top six treatments that you can do at home to begin to naturally heal cervical radiculopathy. So let’s get on with the first one. Now I’m going to explain everything so that you know why you’re doing it and why it’s important.

I don’t want you to just do exercises blindly, just because I’m a physical therapist, and I kind of know what I’m talking about. But you need to understand the reasoning why knowing why also lets you know if this is not a good thing for you to be doing.

Because with all of the six treatments I’m giving you, there may be one or two, that just doesn’t work for you because it makes you feel worse. So the first exercise is a double chin. Now the reason why you need to do a double chin is because the muscles on the front of the neck here, when it comes to cervical radiculopathy tend to be the weakest because they give stability and control to all the vertebrae in the neck, all the bones of the neck.

And without good strengthen those muscles movement begins to not happen very well. And that’s what sets up too much pressure in the area, which causes impingement on the nerves or cervical radiculopathy. So all you have to do here is learn how to make a double chin the right way. So it’s not just about doing this right here.

But if you look at me from an angle here, you’ve got to double chin down. And it’s not just looking down, it’s also a little bit of a backward motion. Let me show you the side view. It’s like this, where you would you should be able to see here is that my head moves right over my shoulders. And it’s not excessive because there are treatment approaches out there where you might be told to push your head all the way back and even give it some overpressure from your chin right here.

That’s not what I want you to do. Right now, we’re going to loosen up your neck joints a different way right now all they need you to do is learn how to use your deep neck flexor muscles or your double chin muscles. So what I want you to do is get that motion down where you slightly nod down and slightly move your head back.

And what you should feel is behind your throat, right on the front of the neck, some muscles tightening up, if you make an all out double chin go all out like a big double chin, you’ll feel those muscles working there, all they want you to do right now is like a 25 at most 50% intensity of what you could do maximally.

So get to that 25 50% position and hold it there for 10 seconds. Once you’re holding it there for 10 seconds, you should begin to feel the muscles work a little bit more the warm up. It’s rarely ever painful or tiring. This should feel okay, and you shouldn’t make any symptoms worse down your arm, hold it there for 10 seconds and then repeat it 10 times.

Now if you’re having trouble getting this motion down, I’m going to show you an alternative way to do this. Now I have to warn you this looks funny, it looks weird, you’re going to be sticking your butt up in the air. Let me just show you what it looks like. So this is an alternative way to get your deep neck flexors or your double chin muscles to work.

If you’re having trouble getting the motion down, you’re going to have to get on the floor. And you might put something on the floor because you’re going to be putting your forehead on this surface right here. You might do this on your bed as well find the right place to do this, just watch this so that you know what’s going to happen before you do anything.

You’re going to put your forehead right between your eyebrows, and your nose, right here. And you’re going to rest your upper body and your elbows and forearms, so there shouldn’t be much pressure on your head, most of the pressure should be on your shoulders and your arms. So it’s going to be like this.

I’m going to put my nose and forehead down and just gently rest the weight of my head on the table here is where I’m at on a massage table. And then what I’m going to do is roll my body forward and let my head roll on the surface. And that makes me nod down. Then roll back to her your nose touches and roll back and forth and play with the motion.

So the idea is that you’re teaching your chin to move into your neck. And when you go in that direction, you should try to fire your muscles in your neck to help get your chin to your neck. And once you can get the motion properly, then I want you to do those holes again, go back to the 10 second holds. Hold it there for 10 seconds.

Get your chin muscles, your double chin muscles working. And it’s a bit of a workout here you’ll feel your neck muscles behind your throat actually activating. And now the reason why I like this exercise in particular is because it offloads your neck because in cervical radiculopathy there tends to be a lot of pressure going through the neck joints from the muscle imbalance but also from gravity.

I want you to do this exercise only as needed because what you eventually need to be doing is the standing version of this the first one that I showed you where you’re just make In a double chin at about 25 to 50% intensity, then you’ve got to do that exercise holding for 10 seconds 10 times hourly.

And the reason for hourly is so that you can get good at using these neck muscles, you’re going to do this exercise right along with the next exercise, let me show you that when next, once you learn how to tuck your chin down and use those muscles that are behind your throat, those deep neck flexors are on the front of your neck, but behind your throat, they’re not in the back of your neck, and they’re not these big muscles on the side of your neck, it’s those ones behind your throat.

Once you can use those to do that, that chin tuck position, then you need to learn how to rotate your head while still using those neck muscles. So getting your chin tucked position your double chin position, and then turn your head over to this side and go the other way.

And what you should find is that when you turn your head with the chin tucked down a little bit, it doesn’t let you turn your head very easily, you kind of get a little bit stuck versus if I don’t worry about it, I can turn farther and look all the way behind my neck.

But that’s not good for the discs in your neck, it’s going to overstretch them and cause problems. So you’ve got to practice turning your head with your chin, just like so what I would do, right along with that the last exercise that you didn’t, where you’re learning how to do the chin motion, you tend to 15th rotation, so count this as one, so all the way over and back because it’s a rep to just like that, making sure that your chin is slightly tucked down double chin three, four, and it shouldn’t hurt.

It’s okay, if you go to the end, as long as it’s not bothering you, you shouldn’t have any symptoms, the pinched nerve, cervical radiculopathy symptoms should not be going down your arms should not hurt your neck, if anything is just going to stretch a bit and feel like those muscles deep in your neck are working.

So just keep going over to the sides like that until you finish 10 to about 15 reps, okay, if you go more, just as long as you’re using those deep neck flexor muscles, then you’re on the right track. Now this needs to carry over into your everyday turning motion.

So like if you’re driving, ideally, you should keep your head the back of your head on the headrest because that’s going to make use those deep neck flexors and turn with your head like that what you want to avoid is, you know, be safe if you if you just have to do it, then go for it. But what you want to avoid is letting your head go out like that and turning with your chin sticking out not using those deep neck muscles because it’s going to make your neck your pinched nerve in your neck your cervical radiculopathy worse over time.

But if you have to quickly check your blind spot or if it’s just not safe for you to do that, then do it the way that safe you don’t want to get in the car accident, hit next we’re going to do a focused neck stretch and you’re going to need a pillowcase for this. So you’re just going to get a standard pillowcase and fold it over the long way just like that two times.

So it’s kind of a strip and then you want to twist it just like that. Then you’re going to put this around your neck, and you’re going to put one hand down against your chest. And then with the other hand, you’re going to be pulling across your body and right where the towel I’m sorry, where the pillowcase falls on your neck.

That’s where it’s going to push your stomach joint. So you need to find a spot that’s a little bit tender. And it might even feel stiff when you start to pull it like this. Then what you’re going to do there is gently get to that stiff kind of slightly tender position. And if you’ll notice I’m not turned all the way as far as I can.

I’m just turned slightly with my head but I’m pulling with this kind of keeping my chin tucked down still and not letting myself do this. So that you can get that joint to stretch out. Then once you get to the stretchy position that you’re going to pull with a little bit of a bounce we call it an oscillation in our field. And you’re just going to bounce it just a bit to wiggle the joint free and you’ll be surprised after doing this just even 10, 20 Maybe 30 little bounces like that.

Make your it’ll it will open up your neck joint and you’ll feel like you can move a lot easier. You might even get a pop or crack like I did right there. Now you can move the pillowcase up a notch or down you can adjust it to the position that you feel like you need it most.

And just work your neck usually lower on the neck. You don’t really need it as much but you might and then once you finish that side, just go to the other side. And if you need to switch your hands, that’s totally fine. You can you can do it however you like there isn’t really a right or a wrong and just pull over.

As you’re keeping your head in a good position you’ll find that if you chin tuck, you’ll usually get a more focused stretch and if you just let it go out and turn as far as possible, you’ll stretch other areas but you’re trying to get a stretching sensation right where that pillowcase is on your neck. That’s why this is called a focus neck stretch using the pillowcase got to do this at home.

You don’t want to do more than about 20 or 30 bounces at each spot on the neck at each level. Because you can actually overstretch with this, you can aggravate things, especially if you have a herniated disc as part of your cervical radiculopathy problem that’s pinching your nerve. You don’t want to overstretch. So be very careful and pay attention to your symptoms.

As you’re doing this. You don’t want to aggravate anything, you don’t need to do this for more than five minutes at a time. And theoretically, you can do this as often as you like throughout the day, like I’ll tell some people that are very stiff in their neck to do this about every hour or two, just to make sure that their mobility is good.

But it needs to be done with the chin tuck exercise, because this stretch with the pillowcase, opens up your joints and frees up more mobility, you also need to do some exercise to get stability to get more control of your bones on each other. By using the right muscles, there’s some other joints in the area that’s not quite your neck butt right next to it right here.

They’re your first and second rib. Let me show you on the skeleton what those look like. So right, there’s your first rib, and right here is your second rib. And so what we’re going to do is use a green stretch strap like this right over that first rib right there. And you can move it slightly over and get your second rib as well. But this can get a little bit focus a little pokey.

So what I want you to do is wrap the pillowcase around it, just going to open it up here. And I’m just draping it over the middle of the strap more or less, you could use a towel if you wanted to, by the way, like a beach towel tends to work pretty good.

Any sort of bath towel, that’s just a cushion it, then what you’re going to do is with one end of the stretch strap, which by the way, I have a link in the description to get one of these stretch straps from Amazon.

So if you want to use when you can, you can also use a long belt. I’ve seen people use like a rope that that works to anything that just isn’t going to stretch. And a long beach towel works really well. You just wind it up and make it a long strip, and you use it the same way. You’re going to sit on one end, then pull this over your shoulder and get it as close to your neck as possible.

But still more so on the this part right here that slips away from your neck. And then you’re going to pull the strap down on that rib, your first ribs right there. And make sure to tilt your head towards the strap because that relaxes the muscles on that side. Because if you if you move the other way, it stretches the muscles and makes them a little stiffer, which makes you work against yourself.

So you want to always tilt towards the strap, then you’re going to pull down and this feels great. A lot of people love doing this one at home, and you just bounce there 20 to 30 reps or so. And it should feel like it’s loosening up the knots in the area a lot people have knots because of cervical radiculopathy problems. And it pulls the rib down away from the nerves that are coming out of your neck.

So it allows a little more space in the long run for the nerves. So it’s okay if you pull kind of forward, some people like to do that I generally like to just pull straight down. And then once you’ve done your first rib, you’re just going to move it slightly over like an inch or half an inch and pull down right there. And that’s about where your second rib is.

You just want to make sure it’s something your shoulder blade, which you’ll know if you feel like your whole shoulders coming down a lot. It’s you feel like it’s pushing just off your shoulder blade. And same thing about 20 to 30 reps. And then to do your other side, you can move this end down here to the other side, but I just reach over and it works too.

So you’re pulling down right there on the first rib, tilt your head towards the strap, pillowcase 20 to 30 reps, which will take you not more than a minute, I mean, maybe even just 30 seconds, depending on how fast your bounces are, and then go out just a slight half inch or an inch. And same thing just pull down with some good forces, this can usually take quite a bit of force.

And especially if you liked it and it frees you up very well you can give yourself quite a bit of force. Now like the focus, next stretch that we did for the third treatment. On this fourth treatment. You don’t want to do this for more than five minutes because it can you can’t overdo it. You can’t over stretch things you can’t you’re kind of compressing the nerves in the area with the intent of moving the ribs though.

But if you’re hanging out there for a prolonged period of time, you might be compressing the nerves and you might start getting some numbness, tingling or pain down the arms. If you’re running into that stop. Don’t continue doing this at that moment.

You could still do this in the future. Just be careful with how hard you’re pulling with how often you’re doing this and how many reps how many bounces you’re doing play with the frequency of all this so that you can find what works best for you.

But chances are that your ribs up here are probably stiff and will benefit from doing this. You just have to find the right amount you might need to start out with a small amount And then work your way up to doing more five minutes is usually plenty. And you can do this as often as you like, as long as you’re not getting any more symptoms, I recommend people do it about hourly to every two hours if they’re starting to work on the cervical radiculopathy problem at home.

Now, the fifth add home treatment for cervical radiculopathy is a wall shrugging exercise. And for this one, you’re going to want to work your way up to doing 10 second holds and doing 10 repetitions of this. And then you’re looking at doing this hourly, as best as possible according to your schedule.

Now, the chin tuck exercise you did at the beginning needs to be in this exercise. So you need to already be good at doing that slight double chin. If you’re not good at it, you’re not going to be ready for this exercise. And it’s potentially going to hurt you more if you don’t have the chin tuck down. So don’t proceed into this one.

If you’re not good at that chin tuck,  go back and hang out at those first couple of exercises. And make sure you’re excellent at tucking your chin and using those deep neck flexor muscles. If you do have it, then what you’re going to start with is a slight double chin. And then you’re going to bring your arms up to this position facing the wall turn around in just a moment.

And once you’re on the wall, you’re going to have to shrug up like so, and hold your head position because the tendency is going to be that when you shrug up, your head’s going to want to jump forward like that your chins going to fly out, you’re going to lose that double chin position, but you have to maintain it.

And you’re going to feel your neck muscles, your deep neck flexors, working just a bit harder to maintain the hip position, then once you’ve done that, you have to go up as high as possible, and hold it there for 10 seconds. So it looks just like this, just standing slightly away from the wall, my forearms are about parallel, we get my head in position, then I’m going to do a big shrug, not letting my head move, my chin is still tucked in, I’m holding it up for about 10 seconds.

And I don’t know if you could tell, but I am shaking just a bit. And this is my first rap I haven’t done one today yet. After about 10 seconds, you can relax down, if you need to bring your arms off the wall, you can, if you want to go right into it to do the next one, that’s fine. Now this can get kind of intense. And at home, if you’re thinking to yourself, I can only just do like three seconds or five or eight seconds, something like that.

That’s okay, do what you can. And if you’re thinking I’m never going to do 10 reps, I can just do four or five, that’s fine to start there. And it’s okay, the goal is to work up to doing 10 second holds 10 times and then eventually hourly, if you’re not doing all those reps and second holds 10 times, then just do a few reps.

But I would recommend that you try to do this hourly because then you wake up those muscles that pull your shoulder blades and your collarbones up. And it frees up the space where the nerves pass through to get to your arm. So this is important to do. So you’re going to knock out 10 reps, once you feel comfortable to do all 10 reps.

And you should feel afterwards that these muscles are run up to the base of the skull through the neck all the way out to the corner of the shoulder out here more so on the back kind of the top and the back of your shoulder.

Those are the ones that are working with the upper trapezius muscles, those need to get stronger in order for you to fix your cervical radiculopathy problem, the sixth treatment that you need to do to help your cervical radiculopathy at home is to begin to lift weights overhead, I’m talking small weights, don’t get worried and I’d be lifting a huge weight right now.

But this is important because when you start to reach up overhead using the right muscles, and then you strengthen those muscles by picking up some weights, you’re going to allow less pressure to be put on your pinched nerves in your neck, on your discs in your spine so that you can help heal your cervical radiculopathy problem. So I have got a 2.5 pound weight here. And that same exercise we did against the wall this shrugging exercise, this is the progression of it.

So you have to keep the chin position, you’re going to grab the weight with two hands. If you have two small weights like two one pound weights, one kilogram, whatever it is, you can hold it like this too. And just do the exercise with a weight in each hand.

But I have this someone to shrug, then reach up and hold it there for 10 seconds. And you’re trying to get those shrugging muscles to work after 10 seconds, you can come back down and relax. And here’s what I want you to look for. When you come up and shrug like that.

If you look at the space between my that my ear and my arm here, I’m trying to close that gap as much as possible. So it’s helpful for you if you can do this in front of a mirror and see if you can get that space to close as best as possible.

Not everybody can do it. Most people can, but some people just are literally not flexible enough and their arms will be out from their head a bit will have a little bit of a gap. And they’re going as hard as possible. You just need to make sure that you’re going as high as possible on the shrug and that you’re shaking a bit. I can’t even talk because I’m shaking.

But that’s how I know that I’m doing it correctly. After 10 seconds, you can come down and I can lift up 100 pounds over my head, this two and a half pounds of weight, holding it at maximum intensity is definitely challenging for me. So then once you get stronger, and you can do 10 second holds of the two and a half pound weight or a one pound weight, whatever is appropriate for you.

And by the way, if you don’t have weights, you can use bottles of water, a big water bottle, a small water bottle, and those are can be a little bit of a weight for you. Here’s a five pound weight. And I’m just going to progress up and I can feel my upper traps working. Keeping my chin down, not letting it fly out like that you have to keep it a little bit tucked down. And I feel all these muscles on both sides working, that’s what you need.

If you don’t feel these upper trap muscles working. And it’s more the muscles down here. These are called the deltoid muscles, or you feel a lot of neck muscles on the on the sides in front of your neck working. That’s not good. That means you’re using the muscles that are compensating and feeding into the problem of cervical radiculopathy.

So it needs to be the upper traps that run from the back of the head down the back of the neck out to the back kind of back half top of your shoulder. And it needs to be your deep neck flexors behind your throat. Those are the ones that should be working. Hey, I hope this video was helpful for you in learning what treatments to do at home to help your cervical radiculopathy problem.

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