Are you suffering upper back or neck pain when looking up? This condition is often work-related and very disruptive towards normal movement of the head and neck. Do you know why you have this pain or how to find relief? Neither do most people affected by pain when tilting the head back.
Upper back and neck pain is often related to mobilization of the head and/or arms. Often patients with these symptoms can not perform many of the basic tasks they are required to do, since they endure terrible stabbing pains when they look upwards or reach upwards with one or both arms.
If you are looking for help from neck pain or upper back pain that occurs when you look up, then you have come to the right place. We will detail the symptoms and potential causes of this condition, as well as provide some strategies to help patients to feel better and return to normal physical functionality.
Upper Pain When Looking Up or Reaching Up
Most patients report experiencing stabbing upper back pain directly on the center of the spine or slightly off-center, in between the shoulder blades, when looking upwards. Additionally, they often report similar pain when raising one or both arms, as well. This pain might not exist at all when the head is positioned normally or may simply exist as a dull aching feeling, especially following an acute attack.
Although this type of pain feels spinal, and can be in rare instances, most cases are simply muscular strain issues that might be incredibly torturous, but are nothing to be concerned about. In fact, most will resolve on their own within a week or two. Some of these conditions might be related to lower cervical or cervicothoracic herniated discs. Regardless, if the condition persists or recurs often, then it is best to have the spine imaged and the condition diagnosed with an orthopedist or physical therapist.
Neck Pain When Looking Up
Pain in the actual neck or at the base of the skull when looking upwards often indicates a spinal causation, although this is not an absolute rule. This type of pain is usually dull and related directly to the movement itself. The pain might not persist if the position looking upwards is held, but might recur when resuming a normal head position. Sharp neck pain of a stabbing variety has a better chance of being muscular than spinally-induced.
Neck pain of this variety is not usually linked to arm movement. However, the pain might also occur to lesser degrees when the neck is mobilized in different ways, such as when rotated or even when looking downward. Common sources of this type of pain include osteoarthritis causing facet syndrome or mechanical pain due to vertebral interactions, herniated discs in the neck, rare cervical spondylolisthesis and severe varieties of atypical lordosis.
Muscular pain syndromes in the middle and upper neck are usually linked to shoulder and arm use and often affect the trapezius tissues at or near their point of attachment to the occipital bone.
Evaluation of Pain
Muscular pain syndromes tend to benefit from massage, ice and heat, while spinal pain syndromes do not respond favorably or at least not to the same degree. If ice (for the first 48 hours), followed by heat and massage thereafter, bring relief, then the condition is most likely muscular in origin.
Activity avoidance is a good short term solution for movement-related pain syndromes. If it hurts to do something, it might simply be the body’s way to telling you not to do it for a while until the condition has a chance to heal. If a week of rest and limited activity does not bring marked relief, then this no longer becomes a productive treatment path.
We tend towards avoiding OTC or prescription drugs, since the risks are greater than the rewards for most back and neck pain syndromes. If the pain endures, it is best to seek out diagnostic evaluation with your choice of physician. Our research shows that going to different types of doctors will often yield contrasting diagnostic viewpoints. Orthopedists tend to diagnose spinal structural problems more often, based on imaging rather than clinical presentation, while physical therapists tend to diagnose soft tissue pathologies based on symptomology more than diagnostic imaging.
