Chronic neck pain for 20 years

Pain & Rehab Forum [Moderated]
1

Hello coaches,

This might become a long post but have nowhere else to post this. So please bare with me.

In 2002, while riding a rollercoaster, I got this injury on my neck and back. Couldn’t move my neck for a week. But pain disappeared anyway. I thought it was done but ever since, my posture became worse and I haven’t seem to move like before. ( I used to be always the one who’s good at sports, movements)

Been training with barbell for 3 years and swimming too. Swimming seems to work very well with my neck and back. After I got out of the pool, my movement seems to become more soft and normal. So swimming gives me confidence that I could live normal again.

I watched and read Tame the Beast web page as Dr.Baraki recommended. It gave me a great deal of hope and confidence that my pain gets better again. But I was still wondering how long could it take? Cause it’s been already for 2~3 years since I started training, swimming. I still feel uncomfortable with my back, shoulder, neck.(Pretty much got better tho)

So, my question would be,

  1. how long is it gonna take to be normal again? 1 more year? or 3 more years again? Maybe lifetime? Cause as far as I know, my neck, back injury is already healed and only the pain system still remains to be overprotective.

  2. What do I do from now on? Do I just keep what I was doing, lifting weight and swimming? or do swimming much more cause it seems to work better?

I’m also willing to hear you out personally! Only I’m living in Korea, if online coaching or consulting is possible.

Thanks for hearing.

2

Hey @Changhyeon_Kang , thanks for the questions and sorry to hear about the persistent spinal pain.

There’s not a concrete answer here generalizable to everyone. The experience of pain is very individualistic however, rather than wondering about leading a “pain free” life, we encourage instilling coping mechanisms to dealing with such experiences as they are a part of being human within a society. I am not sure I’d broadly label your experience as overprotective however we’d need a consultation to dive deeper into this thought process.

Ideally, we can help with collaborating on your understanding of your experiences and coping tools to deal with such experiences so you can continue to pursue valued life goals. I definitely recommend a consultation with us so we can talk through this a bit more and individualize our advice. Please complete our intake paperwork if you are interested in a remote consultation: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F…ilUWA/viewform