Neck pain can be an absolute drag, and get in the way of sleeping, driving, sitting, and all of the above and more. Neck pain can also be accompanied by radiating pain down your arm which can be especially painful and impact your ability to live your life (fun fact, you can also have pain down your arm but no neck pain, but it is still coming from the neck!)
Thankfully physical therapy can help! Research has shown that physical therapists have the ability to effectively evaluate and treat your neck pain, without the need for invasive surgery or prescription pain-killers. Even if you’ve had imaging of your spine that shows “advanced degenerative changes” “osteophytes” “stenosis” etc. PT can still help. In fact, more and more research is coming out saying that imaging findings do not necessarily correlate with pain. Meaning? You can have “the spine of an 80 year old” on your image, but that in no way shape or form is what is causing your pain.
So how can PT help? At Valor Physical Therapy we take the Bio-pyschosocial approach: meaning we are going to ask you about your life-style factors such as sleep, stress, nutrition, occupation and activity level. Fun fact, your therapist extraordinaire, Brigette Schwimmer, was getting debilitating neck pain and headaches for months. And whaddya know? It was from commuting two hours a day in a bad sitting position, sitting at work all day at a not great desk set up, and being in a stressful period of her life. She fixed those things and voila, 75% of the pain gone. Once we dig through the lifestyle factors which could be causing the neck pain, we’ll address the mechanical and coordination problems. This could be accomplished through a variety of treatments such as:
McKenzie Repeated Movement protocol ie Mechanical Diagnosis and Treatment (MDT)
Dry Needling for pain relief
Hands on work including myofascial release, trigger point release, joint mobilization and manipulation
Neuromuscular training: looking at the coordination of your trunk musculature including the lowerback, midback and neck
Strength training of your neck, shoulder and back
Often, neck pain can often have rapid results with physical therapy and we can see rapid changes in anywhere from 1-4 visits at 1-2x/week, and then another 4-5 visits to get you the rest of the way there. Not always! But sometimes that does happen!
We get it, neck pain sucks. So schedule an appointment with us so we can fix it.
1.Wang, Wendy T. J. PhD, PT, OCS; Olson, Sharon L. PhD, PT; Campbell, Anne H. MS, PT, OCS; Hanten, William P. EdD, PT; Gleeson, Peggy B. PhD, PT. Effectiveness of Physical Therapy for Patients with Neck Pain: An Individualized Approach Using a Clinical Decision-Making Algorithm. American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation 82(3):p 203-218, March 2003. | DOI: 10.1097/01.PHM.0000052700.48757.CF
2. Hill et al. “Do findings identified on magnetic resonance imaging predict future neck pain? A systematic review” 3 March 2026. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1529943018300287