How long does a stiff neck last?

It’s often hard for people to figure out how long a stiff neck will last. Our team at Back in Motion knows that this is partly because your recovery time is directly depending on what’s causing your stiffness. However, our team may be able to help you find out more about your condition and how long it may last. 

Back in Motion offers high-quality physical therapy services to the residents of five towns and cities in the state of Maine. One thing that we’ve learned during our many interactions with our patients is the importance of personalized care. As a result, we’re committed to always providing every one of our patients with a unique therapy plan. Our experience has also taught us that answering the question, “How long does a stiff neck last?” may be more difficult than you might think. 

The cause determines how long your stiff neck lasts

Our team at Back in Motion knows that every person experiences symptoms, injuries and conditions differently, and this can make it difficult to tell how long a stiff neck will last. However, our team may be able to help you find out how long this symptom will last by determining what’s causing the symptom. 

For instance, we’ve often seen neck muscle strain cause neck stiffness in our patients. We also know that neck muscle strain is often a result of poor neck posture. Your poor posture may, in turn, have been caused by a condition such as text neck. Our team can tell you that text neck is a muscle-straining condition caused by you spending too much time slumped over your cell phone or tablet. However, we also know that one of our therapy plans may be able to help you relieve the neck stiffness caused by poor posture after just a few applications. 

There are other causes of neck stiffness that may take longer to treat. For instance, our team knows that herniated cervical discs may take many months to treat. A herniated disc is a condition where one of the flexible, fluid-filled discs between your neck vertebrae is damaged. The damage may cause the fluid inside the disc to be squeezed out, and this may cause nerve irritation that may result in neck stiffness or pain. Our team knows that how long it takes to heal herniated discs depends on how badly your disk is damaged. For mild damage, we’ve seen cases where a few weeks of physical therapy helped to ease symptoms and promote healing. However, we also know that more severe damage may require surgery and more extended periods of therapy. 

If you want to find out how long your neck stiffness might last, you may want to come see us at one of our five Back in Motion locations. We even provide free initial consultations that may help to narrow down what’s causing your stiffness and how long it may take to treat. One thing we can tell you is that the longer you wait, the longer your neck may take to heal. 

Contact our team today for more information or to schedule an initial appointment.