someone regarding Somatic Experiencing. The quick explanation: A rabbit, if frightened by a predator, will jump around after it escapes to shake out its tension. Humans do not, and especially in the modern world, are more likely to "hold it in" physically.

I didn't follow through, but I thought it might be helpful for my PN TMJ combo. Folks with whatever-it-was-I-had tend to hold a lot of tension in the muscles, and this tension need not necessarily be anxiety. Simple concentration on a computer will do it, too. I found that I had become very unaware of what my muscles were doing, to the point some of my neck muscles were electrophysically exhausted because I held them tight all the time.

Anyway, I thought it was a promising approach.

Can I ask you if you have PN at all? Or was your problem solely myofascial?

You can ask, as long as you don't expect an answer! I don't really know!

To be more precise, I certainly did--and still do--have entrapment PN, in various places all over my body. (It comes and goes, at much milder levels.)

My hand pain, for instance, seems to have come from entrapments in my neck and thoracic outlet and underarm and on my arm--all at once. It's a double-crush syndrome, whereby one pinch makes the nerve more vulnerable to other pressures all along its length. My cervical vertibrae were so tight I could literally hear them move; my PT used a "wedge" and traction to open them up.

I still have bilateral elbow neuropathy. I wake up with tingling numbness in my ulnar area, sometimes just the hand, sometimes the whole elbow side of my forearm. It goes away with movement or straightening my arm.

All that said, I don't really know what happened, or what caused what. My onset was extremely abrupt and followed viral illnesses and inoculations, so autoimmune reactions have not been ruled out at all. Did my connective tissue have the reaction, or did my nerves develop PN and become more susceptible to irritation? No one knows.

Also, it's important to remember that myofascial pain is itself a neuromuscular condition. Trigger points are considered to be dysfunctional endplates of motor neurons, and what causes that to happen, nobody knows.

Confusing enough for you?

ETA: Aussie, I've always felt, reading your posts, that you have exactly the same thing I had. While the causes remain a mystery, I do know that the treatments worked!

I also have c-spine problems. Bulging disc at C2 with spinal stenosis, & arthritis as confirmed by MRI last year. The neck makes noises when it moves,and is always very very tight. I have spasms in shoulders and neck from this, and lord help me if I slept on it wrong!! The pain goes in the arm. But I am sure you can relate. Funny huh??

The noise is called crepitis. See a physical therapist.

My PT loosened up my neck to 100% mobility, and I now have little noise. She used something called a wedge to loosen the connective tissues between my vertebrae, and also used careful traction. Huge difference.