I have cervical spine problem and my doctor who runs a health centre with a few physio's working for him and he is also a acupuncturists, the old chinese method and lazor acupuncture,and has diploma's of sports medicine all over the joint, so you would reckon he really knows his stuff.
He told me never attempt to do any stretches that affect my neck, without warming the area up first with heat for 10 minutes, i followed his advise and it worked, prior to this i went through about 6 physio's who all give me exercises to do, but they all aggravated my condition and made it a hell of a lot worse, none of them ever mentioned anything about applying heat for 10 minutes prior to the stretches, of course my spinal problem may be a completley differant type of issue than yours, but i thought it wouldn't hurt to let you know about my experiences.
This same doc is also a big believer in magnetic therapy as well, as i am too, i have been using them for many years, they have helped me with my neck problem and other health problems and i have helped a few family members with bad lower spine problems as well, they will not fix the problem but they can relieve a lot of the pain, only this morning i put some magnets on my brother that has a real bad back [lower spine problem] that was causing sciatica pain, pins & needles down one leg, i spoke to him 5 hours after i applied the magnets and he's telling me that the pain has lessoned and pins and needles are nearly gone already, he couldn't believe it after suffering so long, the longer you leave them on the better they work.
Liza Jane has a thread running about the magnets that i suggested may help her, and she has found relief .