CanadaLEO,

Welcome to NeuroTalk.

I think you have two issues to consider. You likely have a subtle neck injury. These are hard to treat because the symptoms are more inflammation without stiffness. It is important to not strain the neck while getting treatment. Range of Motion exercises can go against healing in the short term. Icing after each treatment or exercise period is important. Maintaining posture discipline while sleeping is another. That brings me to the second issue. Gentle traction and mobilization by the PT worked best for me.

If you are straining your neck when sleeping with poor posture, you can cause inflammation. This inflammation can reduce blood flow. Reduced blood flow will disrupt sleep and can trigger night terrors or just stressful dreams. This reduced blood flow can also trigger Central Sleep Apnea. This is when the brain stem stops telling the lungs/diaphragm to take a breath.

I know this one personally. When my CSA manifests, I have very stressful dreams and a miserable day after. It took me a couple years to get to where my neck was stable when I sleep. Until then, I had to be very disciplined with sleep posture.

My wife gets up before me and could tell how my day was going to be by observing my breathing and/or facial expression. If my face had a stern grimace, I would have a bad day.

I also notice that if I woke in the morning after stressful dreams, I would have a bad day. Everything pointed to my neck.

I spent a lot of time sleeping in a recliner because I got the best relaxing and restorative sleep that way. I would curl a pillow up around my ears to help keep my head from rolling to the side.

I understand your struggle because I dreaded going to bed because of the dreams I would have.

Of the meds your doc gave you, only the naproxen has anti-inflammatory value. The acetaminophen in the Tramacet is pain relief but not anti-inflammatory. Anti-inflammatory meds need to be taken consistently. It is difficult to reduce inflammation once it sets in. It is easier to maintain a low inflammation by consistent medication. I learned this from my ortho after shoulder surgery. He put me on 200 mgs of ibuprofen 3 times a day.

I did well combining aspirin and acetaminophen. The aspirin provided anti-inflammatory and pain relief and the acetaminophen provided pain relief using a different pain relief mechanism. The relief was almost like taking a codeine pill without the woozies. You can take max does of each at the same time.

Any ongoing neck therapy should be gentle treatments. C-2 and below can handle more stress but C-2 and above cannot. It is usually C-2 and above that causes the problems. They do not have faceted joints that hold alignment so only ligaments hold them in position. Ligaments take 6 weeks of no strain to heal, longer to strengthen.

My PT/physio did gentle traction and mobilization. Nothing stressful.

I wish I could help you with the tinnitus. I have lived with tinnitus for decades. It is screaming at me right now. I have had to learn to ignore it or use masking sounds. It is louder than my laptop cooling fan at full blast. The concussed brain makes it worse because the concussed brain can lose the filter and ignore capacity to disregard meaningless stimulation.

Some here on NT that neck healing helped with tinnitus.

My best to you.