Any suggestions on how to cope with pain and stiffness due to cervical spondylosis?

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Megrose489
Megrose489 Member Posts: 776
in Living with arthritis

Last year I got up one morning and my neck and shoulders were excruciatingly stiff and painful. It gradually got worse and I had pain and tingling down my left arm and into my hand. I saw the physiotherapist at my doctor's surgery who diagnosed cervical spondylosis and gave me exercises to do. She thought I had a herniated disc in my neck due to degeneration of the discs - I'm 77. The only little relief I got from the pain was putting my hand to the top of my head and I've read that this might have been cervical radiculopathy. It improved very slowly over about six weeks and even 6 30/500 co-codamol a day only took the edge off the pain.

However, for the past few weeks, once more I've had stiffness and pain in my neck and shoulders - especially in the morning - which lasts through the day. Thankfully, it's nothing like last year. I'm presuming that these are chronic symptoms of the cervical spondylosis - my neck creaks when I turn it - and am taking paracetamol and co-codamol occasionally (I don't like taking it).

Is there anything else I could do to improve things? I do the neck stretches the physiotherapist told me to do last year. I've also made an appointment to see the GP and am going to ask for an x-ray or scan as I haven't had either as yet. The Help Team have also suggested capsaicin cream, which I've never used, so will be asking my GP about that, too. Have others found it helpful?

I have osteoarthritis in my shoulders, hands feet, knees and spine, but, weirdly, not my hips - for which I am very grateful!

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  • astradog4
    astradog4 Member Posts: 2
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    Hi, Sounds awful all that pain and stiffness. I've read that when your neck creaks it is called crepitus, and it can be caused by air bubbles popping, or tissues and bones moving over each other, in the joint but it's not serious. If your going to see your GP, you could also ask them if they could check on a condition called PMR as this can cause pain and stiffness in the neck which can come on quickly. May be worth mentioning it. I think they do blood tests to check for this. Hope you soon feel better and get to see your GP quickly. Astradog4 🙂

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