Originally Posted by Mark in Idaho (Post 934988)

Knowing where you are helps us understand what health care is available.

If you get tense in your neck and shoulders, could you have unresolved injuries there? It is not uncommon for a head injury to include minor but chronic neck injuries that go down to T-1 or T-2. These injuries can be very sensitive to stressful situations. Plus, muscle tension can be caused by upper brain stem inflammation. This is why icing the upper neck can be helpful.

My neck is never sore but it does get inflamed. I ice it and the inflammation goes down and the other related symptoms get better.

TENS can work by overloading the nerve signals so they shut down or slow down allowing the muscles to relax. The nerve signals start in the upper neck/brain stem. So, addressing the upper neck/brain stem with ice is usually helpful.

Ice is too low tech for many therapists to suggest.

The aspirin and paracetamol combination gives me relief similar to codeine and paracetamol.

What kind of stressful situations are you commonly in that cause you shoulder and neck tension? They may also be slowing your recovery.

Originally Posted by sigoria (Post 933780)

wakey: I got a TENS-machine from my physiotherapist that I've been using, and that helps to reduce the pain, though not nearly enough to get me back to school. I haven't tried any medication except for over-the-counter paracetamol and ibuprofen, usually taking full dosage of both at the same time to even get out of bed. I'm also enrolled in a rehabilitation program with a specialized team focused on dealing with long term pain. But that isn't at all about lessening the pain, it's just about learning to live and function even though you're in pain. I tried rest, as I said I was on full sick-leave the first 6 months, and that did work, but my doctor has kept telling me that too much rest can be just as bad as too little, and so I've tried to push myself to do as much as possible to keep this from happening. Have you heard anything about too much rest being bad for pcs?

Mark: I was on full sickleave until june 1st, after that I have tried to keep my food- and sleep-patterns as stable and healthy as possible, but it's been hard since all my energy has gone to trying to stay in school. Instead I've tried to pull back on my spare-time activities, and I haven't really been out to see friends, or even visiting my family, almost at all.
I've got some different ways of dealing with the pain, as mentioned above to wakey. But I can't say that I've been that focused on recovery, since my doctor basically have told me, time and time again, that any physical damage is already healed and that too much rest would be counterproductive. I guess I have been telling myself that it's "all in my head" and that I should just push through. I'm starting to realize that this might not be the best strategy if I ever want to be able to go back to my "normal" self again, and so I come here asking for advice.

My pace before the relapse was high, I've been trying to study full time, but as I mentioned in my first post that hasn't really worked. So I've constantly been stressed about falling behind and losing my student-loans, and at the same time I've been forced to move so there's been that stress as well. The relapse came as soon as I started to relax a bit - we had a week-long autumn break about 2,5 weeks ago, and after that I just haven't been able to get up and going again. But I had been deteriorating ever since I started working/studying again after my sickleave, so it was really just a matter of time anyway.

I'm not tender at all in the area around my neck, or behind my ears, but I'll make sure to get a referral to get that checked out anyway. Thank you!