[pr_capone]

Originally Posted by mcan

It depends on exactly what your problem is...


If you have a prolonged "stinger" (inflamed muscle that is impacting a nerve, making it feel tight) where you can't turn your head, then some combination of Naproxen (aleve) and Acetaminophen (tylenol) will certainly bring some relief -assuming you don't have access to something a bit more aggressive like Tramadol (ultram) or narcotic pain medicines. I've never had any luck with muscle relaxers, and many popular ones have had long term "risks" and have pulled from the shelves, so I stay away from them.

Another thing that really helps is isometric exercises on both the effected muscle and the antagonist muscles. No weight should be applied, just push on something static until the muscle completely fatigues... When it does, you should get a temporary but instant and significant relief of the pressure on the nerve.

The last measure is really painful, but can help a lot. If you have somebody who can give you a very HARD and deep tissue massage all around your shoulder girdle until the muscle physically moves around again, the resultant movement can take the pressure off the nerve, and stop the inflammation cycle. But this HURTS like hell.


If your problem is in a DISC, then you're really looking at drugs and rest. The isometrics won't help until the disc heals, which can only happen with time and water. Water is crucial because discs have NO blood source like most other tissues, meaning the only way it GETS any nutrition in order to heal itself is through the bone marrow of the surrounding vertebra. When you are dehydrated (even a little) the marrow of your bone is much thicker and harder and nutrition doesn't really get to the nucleus of the disc, and you won't heal. This is all assuming that the disc is just squeezed, and not burst. If your disc has burst you might consider surgery, but... Buddy, even that doesn't really help much. I have two burst discs and I just manage the pain when it flairs up using the techniques above.

I had my wife squeeze on my shoulder for a bit and the only thing that came out of it was a lot of cursing. lol Trying the now to hopefully get some relief before going to sleep. I hope it isn't a disk issue but a muscle issue... thanks for the suggestions!