it's when your neck [lower part]hurts like a sore throat but when you drink something cold it doesn't help. remeber when your mom gave you ginger ale for sore throat -it felt soo good. this is a very painful neck isn't made better with narcotics at all but 800-1000 mg of ibprofen helps,it doesn't feel scratchy when you eat,i lose my voice and go from hypo to hyper thyroid and back again during the process. 1st time i spent 5 wks on predinisone till it cleared,in dec 2008 it happened again but no loss of voice and didn't need pred.now it's been 3 wks and i went right to dr who agreed on the pred and had labs drawn to see if hypo of hyper.