Chronic Neck Pain

[Aggie47]

I got in a car accident 3 months ago. The doctor said I had whiplash, and provided me with exercises, told me to ice it, and provided me with a soft cervical collar. I came back 6 weeks later, and told him no progress had been made. It still hurt. In fact it hurt so bad, I had problems holding up my head. He ordered an MRI. After the MRI, he came in and told me I had torn 75% of the tendons and ligaments in my lower neck. I had to have surgery. I had the surgery, and had a scar on the side of my neck...it hurt like never before. They proceded to put me in a CTO device which completely immobilized my neck. This thing stopped all my pain. When I came back two weeks later, the pain was worse. At this point, my neck was numb. I'm not sure what to do; the doctor's puzzled, and so am I.

[ar58]

Aggie,

There are many alternative therapies you may like to explore if you seem to be going nowhere. One of them is to try some herbal homeopathic remedies. We have used them quite effectively for many years now for all kinds of health issues. They might help you as well for your neck pain. Let me know if you need any further help

[aussie_jono]

amitriptyline/nortriptyline, 25mg at night for 2 nights, then 50mg at night

celocoxib, 200mg per day

Zostrix cream applied several times a day

acetaminophen (or an acetaminophen/opoid combination) taken as needed

[searchingsam]

Go to an osteopath who deals in sports injury. These practitioners closely examine the spin and are very knowledgeable with all the connective tissue and nerves.
With so much injury your tendons and muscles will be scared and knotted and thus causing you pain.
An osteopath can gently massage these areas to release the tension and knots and later if necessary do any manipulation of the atlas area that may also be causing pain. They can also show you how to sit, stand a walk with correct posture to help take tension from your nexk. Dont leave with a load of pills and so forth. And stay away from chiropractor as many don't message before hand or for long enough and can cause more injure to scare tissue.
Combine this with acupuncture, again with someone familiar with whiplash or sport injury. Any Chinese herbs would be very beneficial for pain, so if you walk out with that type of medication you should be pretty right.
Warm and hot compress is also a good idea to help blood flow to your injured area and helps with the healing progress.
All the best,
Agape,
searchingsam.