Head and Neck Pain

Headaches or spasms making it difficult for you to complete daily tasks? Advantage Physio can help you with a diagnosis and treatment quickly and effectively.

Headache

Headaches can be related to many things, including posture, whiplash, stress, tension or referred pain from stiff joints in your upper neck, joints in your upper thoracic spine or tight neck muscles. Headaches may respond well to physiotherapy, including various treatments from mobilisation and stretching to acupuncture.

Muscle Spasm

A spasm is a protective mechanism against further injury most commonly found in the back or neck, often responding to an underlying joint or disc problem. A sports physio can treat a muscle spasm, but the underlying cause also needs to be identified and treated to prevent future problems.

Neck Pain

Due to the many structures in a small space, this is an area that physiotherapists treat daily. Some of the causes can be nerves, discs, joints, muscles, and ligaments. These problems can also result in nerve pain.

Nerve Pain

Nerve pain can also be known as neuropathic pain and can occur when a health condition affects your nerves. these nerves then carry pain signals to your brain. Pain from nerves often presents as weakness, numbness, pain or pins and needles, as is most commonly felt in your arms or legs. See also, pinched nerve.

Osteoarthritis (OA)

OA occurs when the protective cartilage at the end of the bone starts to break down and causes pain, stiffness and swelling of the joint and leads to difficulty moving. It can affect most of your joints, most commonly knees, hips, back, neck, shoulders, and fingers. Physiotherapy can benefit OA using treatments such as mobilisation, exercises, acupuncture etc.

Pinched Nerve

Nerve pain can also be known as neuropathic pain and can occur when a health condition affects your nerves. These nerves then carry pain signals to your brain. Pain from nerves often presents as weakness, numbness, pain or pins and needles, as is most commonly felt in your arms or legs. See also, nerve pain.

Referred Pain

The origin of the pain is in one area, for example, the lower back, but the pain is felt in another location, for example, the leg. Referred pain is usually due to nerve compression (sciatica) or muscle trigger points.

Slipped Disc

The shock-absorbing disc between the vertebra can bulge in varying degrees from a slight bulge with minimal pain to a prominent bulge that can give symptoms down the leg to the toes. Symptoms can include pain, weakness, numbness and pins and needles. It is essential to treat these quickly to stop the bulge from getting stuck in that position.

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome

This group of disorders can occur when the nerves or blood vessels in the space between the ribs and collar bone become compressed. These disorders can lead to pain, weakness, numbness or pins and needles, often in the shoulder, but can occur anywhere between your neck and fingers. It is vital to get this assessed and treated as soon as possible as many structures can be affected.

Thoracic Pain

The thoracic is the middle portion of your spine, and due to our lifestyle and posture often becomes very stiff, which can lead to pain, muscle spasms and sometimes referred pain to other parts of the body.

Trigger Points

These can be treated successfully with massage, trigger point release, acupuncture and stretches. They are due to muscles becoming very tight, referring to pain in other body parts.

Whiplash

Whiplash can occur after sudden movement of the head forwards, backwards or sideways, often after a road traffic accident (RTA). It can result in headaches, pain, numbness or pins and needles in the arm, neck or back. Joints that have been jarred (in the neck especially) cause the muscles to go into spasms to protect against further damage. Physio can help reduce muscle spasms and pain and slowly encourage your joints to start moving with mobilisation and stretches. Sometimes acupuncture can be beneficial with this type of injury.

Paul is obsessive about physiotherapy and this shows is in the level of explanation he gives. You get the “how” and the “why” as well as just the “what” and I find that helps greatly when performing the exercises and getting the form right. The Ruislip practice also has a very well equiped gym

Adam