Bad sleeping posture = Bad neck ache

One day I woke up with a sharp pain around my right scapular. At the end of the day, the pain had spread to my neck. Initially, I thought I had injured it through lifting weights at the gym. After resting for two months, the pain was still there and massaging with medicated oil did not help. Applying heat pad provided some relief but did not treat the cause. I was having backache too each morning.

I was worried that it could be more than a bad strain and visited my sports doctor. He diagnosed as a strain to my right trapezius muscle and advised me to go for physical therapy. Trapezius muscle is a huge muscle group, consisting of a broad, flat muscle on each side of the upper and back part of the neck, shoulders, and back. This muscle group is involve in raising, rotating, or drawing back the shoulders, and pulling the head backward or to one side.

Since I had never been to a physical therapy before, it would be interesting to determine how they would treat the pain. Prior to treatment, I need to fill up a survey to describe my pain level, types of pain (I did not know there were so many adjectives to describe pain, amazing) and usual health questions.

I was given an ultrasound and massage over the muscle. My therapist could feel the tightness of my muscle whereas I just felt pain. She also taught me to sleep correctly by adjusting the height of my pillows or rolling a towel to support my neck. The position to adopt is the natural curvature of the spine, not too high where you would be facing your toes nor too low, causing the neck to arch up. The shoulders should not be rested on the pillows. When I first came to USA, I had trouble adjusting to the soft pillows and the low height. So, I had five pillows to play with the height. She also printed out some neck exercises to stretch the muscles.

I just bought a contour memory foam pillow which has the neck support. The cover was soft and plush, really comfortable. If I maintain to sleep on my back, I am on the road to recovery.