The Ultimate Guide To Neck Pain

What Causes Neck Pain?

The experience of neck pain is extremely common. It’s the second most common area of musculoskeletal pain. Around 50% of people will experience it at some point in their life. Just like lower back pain, neck pain can appear episodically, fluctuate in severity and persist for long periods. The pain can be felt as a dull ache, a sharp/stabbing pain, or a combination of these.

What’s more, is that your neck pain can sometimes refer to other areas around the shoulder and upper back. This referred pain can at times feel like an ache or even a burning, tingling, and or shooting-like sensation. A common error people make is they mistake The victim for the criminal. The Victim being the arm/shoulder/upper back pain and the criminal being the neck.

So, what CAUSES pain? 

This is actually a tricky question to answer honestly. The topic of causation and pain are both extremely complex. Rather than diving headfirst into some dense human physiology, biophysics, neuroscience and philosophy… we’ll keep it simple and reframe the question.

Rather, What CONTRIBUTES to neck pain? 

Now, this is a far easier question to answer. This is because there is rarely one specific thing that is solely to blame for your neck pain. Your pain is likely being felt due to several contributing factors. Yep, that’s right… it’s not solely your pillows’ or your postures’ fault!

Generally, there can be a mechanical component (neck joints), a nervous tissue component (nerve irritation or compression) or a combination of both. Like everything that exists in the world, our body’s hard and soft tissues have specific loading capacities. When these are exceeded we can injure something which then triggers the body’s inflammatory response. Both the injured tissue and the subsequent inflammation can contribute to your pain. Now it’s important to know that some inflammation is good as it is your body’s natural process of healing.

However, just like much of the good things in life, you can have too much of a good thing! Excessive inflammation can build up the pressure felt in your neck and can sensitise some of the surrounding nerves. This can spark that referral to your shoulder or that burning sensation down your arm.

Now the inflammatory response can be triggered by irritating a structure in your neck. This means there doesn’t necessarily need to be an “injury” at play. Also important to note that while generally people with neck pain present with inflammation, people can experience neck pain without inflammation present at all. So what’s contributing to the pain in these situations? I guess it’s time for a really important concept… 100% of your pain is generated by your nervous system, not by your neck. We can say the same thing for any other body structure.

Now, you may be feeling your pain in your neck, but in reality, your spinal cord and brain pick up threat signals being sent by nerves in the neck and translate them as something that requires action by producing pain. That action may be to rest, to stretch the neck muscles or any other host of actions to reduce your pain. Have a read of this to see what actions you can take to reduce your neck pain.

Summary:

• Your neck pain can arise from mechanical factors, nervous tissue irritation or a combination of these.
• Your neck pain is likely not being caused by one single thing but rather a bunch of contributing factors.
• Your pain is generated by your nervous system, not your neck.
• The body’s inflammatory response, which is designed to heal you and is good for you in the short term, can sensitise your nervous system and can increase the pressure felt in your neck.

When Is My Neck Pain Serious?

Neck pain can be terrible, and terrifying. If you get a new type of neck pain that you’ve never felt before, it can trigger all types of thoughts and anxieties, and Dr Google might not be the best person to talk you through it. Your eyes get drawn to things like surgeries, injections, degenerative diseases and before you know it you’re an anxious sobbing mess laying foetal on the kitchen floor AND your neck still hurts.

So it is worthwhile noting when things are serious, and maybe you should get yourself down to E.D. quicksmart because your risk of serious or life-threatening injury is high.

Firstly, the risks of serious problems are incredibly small for the average person with neck pain (like, we’re talking 99%+ chance of not having anything serious – like if they were your odds at the casino you’d play that game every single time type odds). These risks do increase however with certain symptoms that are present, and certain age groups, medical histories, traumas, and things like that.

So what are the BIG ONES?

Spinal Fractures After A Trauma

‘Technically breaking your neck’

There’s a bunch of criteria here for when you should get an X-ray, the main one being trauma to someone over the age of 65. Other than that, a car crash at 100km/hr or more, a headfirst dive, a fall more than 5 stairs AND neck pain = definitely go get an X-ray. Most of the time with a car accident where an ambulance is called you’ll be x-rayed anyway.

Spinal Cord Injury

‘Or what we think of when someone says that they’ve broken their neck’

Serious spinal cord issues come along with serious symptoms – these are:

• Pins and needles in the hands and feet that won’t go away (i.e. if you’ve been sitting on the toilet for too long and you get pins and needles in your feet, don’t call 000 – just get off your phone and finish your business next time)
• Muscle wasting in the hand – where your normal healthy hand muscles should be, there are now divots. Go to the hospital
• Unsteady gait – make sure you’re not drunk first
• Serious changes in bladder and bowel function – does it feel like you have to urinate but you can’t? Or are you diarrhoea-ing all over the place and there is no logical explanation for it? Probably wise to seek medical advice ASAP

Cancer

Here’s a big one that people (understandably) freak out about. It has been scientifically proven, however, that the only meaningful criteria for cancer are that you have had cancer before. If you haven’t, it’s not impossible, but EXTREEEEMLY unlikely. Other things to watch out for include:

• Age >50
• Unexplained weight loss (major weight loss)
• Constant pain, no relief with laying down or changing positions
• Lack of response to quality treatment

Instability Due To Torn Ligaments

Very rare, and almost always trauma-related. For the most part, you will FEEL unstable, your neck won’t allow you to move in any direction, and you’ll likely have the issues that are in the spinal cord injury list. The full list is below:

• Occipital (back of the head) headache and numbness (but if you only have a headache with none of the other symptoms, super unlikely to be instability).
• Severe limitation during neck movements in ALL directions (up-down, side to side, side flex, forward-backward)
• Signs of spinal cord injury
• Feeling of instability/unable to hold head up
• Major guarding of muscles

Not Enough Blood To The Brain

The biggest risk factor here is that you have high blood pressure that isn’t medicated. Smokers are in a high-risk group due to it breaking down the artery walls and making the blood more viscous (thicker, like syrup compared to water). If you’re getting any of these symptoms and they can’t be explained, you need to go to the hospital:

• Feinting
• Dizziness with your neck movements
• Slurred speech
• Trouble swallowing
• Double vision

If you’re still reading this, it means you haven’t decided you need the hospital YET…

The Artery To Your Brain Threatening To Burst

Sounds gruesome, it is ridiculously unlikely, but it can happen. This is generally described as “pain like no other” and “the worst headache I have ever had”. It almost always happens with a resting blood pressure that is stupidly high and uncontrolled. GO. TO. HOSPITAL.

The Artery To Your Brain Has Burst

I hope you’re already in the hospital because you have about 40 seconds to live.

Serious Systemic Disease

Vitals all over the shop.

• Temp >37
• BP >160/95
• Resting pulse >100
• Resting respiration >25bpm
• Fatigue

In other words, you feel like absolute SH*T, and it’s not a regulation flu or virus. Get medical advice STAT!

Wrapping Up:

This is THE WORST of THE WORST!

Knowledge is power, and although this info may have stressed you out thinking about all the symptoms you may have had, try and think clearly about it. If you’re not really sure, chances are you don’t have any of these issues – but worth talking to a professional to get it cleared.

Wrapping up, this is the worst of the worst. Knowledge is power, and although this info may have stressed you out thinking about all the symptoms you may have had, try and think clearly about it. If you’re not really sure, chances are you don’t have any of these issues – but worth talking to a professional to get it cleared.

Neck Pain Causing Headaches

Have you got a niggly head pain behind your eye?

Top of your head?

Or at the base of your skull?

It is likely not a ‘migraine’ or worse, a brain injury (you would be surprised how many people jump to that conclusion); it could simply be coming from your neck. The technical term for these types of headaches caused by your neck is called
Cervicogenic Headaches.

They are super common and can be so painful; many sufferers often mistake them for migraines. But, they are not genuine Migraines; they are simple referral patterns caused by the pressure built up in your neck. These patterns were initially called the ‘Cloward signs’ and usually is the source of pain around the head and can even lead to neck pain going into your shoulder. 

So what is it, and how is it causing MY HEADACHES?

It all starts with a joint in the neck called the Facet or Zygophoseal joint – which look like wings on your spinal bones. They interlock, and their purpose is to allow your neck to move side to side by sliding on top of each other, which gets tricky when the joint gets sticky’.

This stickiness is just a result of pressure build-up within the joint, and it starts to become stiffer – leading to the stiff neck that often comes with the Cervicogenic headache.

The pressure building up in your joints gets picked up by your nerves and brain.

How does the pressure build up?

Pretty simple – Stress! Stress has a huge impact on pain. over use such as in surfing with the lifting your head up and constant turning of you head or on the opposite spectrum, staying in a sustained position for a long time such as falling asleep on a couch.

Neck Pain To Shoulder

You might be surprised to find out that shoulder and upper back pain may be coming from your NECK. It is a condition that gets overlooked all the time, especially by doctors.

To clarify, when we talk about pain from your neck, we’re not talking about a pinched nerve – we’re just talking about subtle pressure in a joint. It can easily refer to the tip of your shoulder or, more commonly, into the shoulder blade area.

As you can imagine, it leads to a WRONG diagnosis of a pulled muscle or a shoulder tendon injury. In our opinion, this FLAWED view of neck pain going into the shoulder has led to surgeries that you can easily AVOID!

The crazy thing is, we’ve known about this neck pain referral pattern since 1959. A neurosurgeon called Dr Cloward injected the neck joints of a group of people with salt solution – Saline, and he measured where they experienced pain.

You can see in the image below, each level of your neck refers to an area of your body, with a large part of the shoulder covered by simple pain from your neck. It can also cause pain in the base of the head and eyeball, similar to headaches.

Now, when you think about it, that’s just pressure. It is a pressure that builds up from having extra fluid after injections into a tight space. It is these benign and straightforward issues that have led to the neck pain going into the shoulder. Not because of damage to the shoulder, muscle, tendon or bone. The pressure that builds up in these joints would be from sleeping in a position for too long, environmental stress, or even just training too hard in the gym.

We urge you to REFLECT here:

• Are you experiencing higher levels of stress lately?
• Did you wake up with pain in the shoulder after sleeping awkwardly?
• Did you overdo it at the gym or playing with the kids? 

This type of shoulder pain is often seen as a shoulder pathology. It leads to medical management that you can avoid. Primarily surgeries, but also cortisone injections and long term use of pain medication.

Next time you get shoulder blade pain or pain in the tip of your shoulder, ask yourself… ‘Could it be coming from my neck?’ 

Neck Pain & Dizziness

There are lots of different conditions that can cause you to feel DIZZY, but it so happens that your NECK can actually be a MAJOR contributor.

Generally, what you’re looking for is your neck pain and your dizziness to come on and go away together. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.

If your neck joints aren’t moving well together, the signals they send back to your brain can get scrambled and the brain cannot make sense of what is happening. Therefore, a brief short-circuit will occur within the brain, and a dizziness episode will occur. It doesn’t even have to involve a ‘sore neck’ – it can just be a movement issue that affects your wiring.

The good news is that this particular condition, known as neck-based or cervicogenic dizziness, CAN BE TREATED! Your physio will look at the way your neck and back move and will look for areas of stiffness or potentially where there’s too much movement (hypermobility). 

Using hands-on techniques – working on your muscles, joints, nerves and ligaments – your physio will help start to improve the scrambled signals that are going back to your brain.

Usually, you’ll see the physio a few times a week for the first 2-3 weeks, spacing things out further as your symptoms are reducing. Combined with exercises to help out things like posture, neck and shoulder muscle activation and specific balance work, you’ll tend to be back to 100% by around the 6-8 week mark.

Most of the time it takes this long to get everything to reset and functioning smoothly, but usually, this is a comparatively CHEAP & DRUG-FREE option that is a long term solution and stops the issue from coming back!

Sometimes your dizziness and your neck pain can be unrelated. You can have a sore stiff neck, but the eyes or inner ear are the culprits, and they’re the ones sending the scrambled signals back to the brain. Physiotherapists are again BEST PLACED to figure out which area is causing the dizziness and can help relieve your fear or anxiety around your dizziness.

Neck Pain & Nausea?

In our experience, a sick feeling in the stomach associated with a sore neck can have a few different explanations.

Worst case scenario tends to point towards ligament damage at the top of the neck and is more associated with severe trauma – e.g. high-speed car crash, head high tackles, head first falls/dives
– see ‘When Is My Neck Pain Serious’ for more detailed information, and whether or not you should be taking yourself to the hospital quicksmart.

Another issue that needs to be ruled out is migraine – these can STRIKE HARD and can come with some full-on symptoms like vomiting, light sensitivity, and even so bad as slurred speech and weakness in the arms and legs. If you don’t know if you suffer from migraines, and you’re having these weird symptoms, heading off to the hospital is a wise choice!

If all the nasty stuff has been ruled out, and you still have nausea, from what we’ve seen in the clinic, it is about a mismatch of signals going from your neck to your brain and spreading around the body. To understand this we need to take a slightly closer look at the brain.

At any given moment, your brain is trying to figure out the world, and help your body to survive in it. If you have a neck based sprain, irritation, or inflammation, your brain will try to figure out the best way to help it. Most of the time it gets it right, and you can manage little niggles and things settle down quite quickly.

Sometimes, however, it can’t make sense of the problem, so it will make other things hurt to try to protect the overall system – this is also known as referred pain. This then gets your FIGHT or FLIGHT system involved, and occasionally this can trigger different sensations around the body, one of which is NAUSEA!

If it’s a signal mismatch problem, physio treatment will usually work. Similar to neck-based vertigo, hands-on techniques that work on your muscles, joints, nerves and ligaments are where you should start. Usually, you’ll see the physio a few times a week for the first 2-3 weeks, spacing things out further as your symptoms are reducing. Combined with exercises to help out things like posture, neck and shoulder muscle activation and specific balance work, you’ll tend to be back to 100% by around the 6-8 week mark!

Neck Pain That Is Burning

Whether you’ve sat too close to a campfire, copped a face full of steam in the kitchen or have ventured back into the sun whilst still sunburnt… experiencing a burning sensation is NOT ideal!

What about when you feel this burning sensation without an obvious reason? If this scenario sounds terribly familiar then don’t worry…I’ll explain some reasons as to WHY you are feeling this sensation and guide you towards WHAT you should do about it.  

Let’s start with WHY…

When a nerve is irritated somewhere in your body it can elicit a burning sensation. This nerve irritation can be due to the nerve passing close by chemicals such as the histamine and cytokines found in inflammation.

It can be due to pressure or pinching via a mechanical source where the nerve is slightly compressed between the body’s hard (bones) or soft tissues (muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia). When the nerve is irritated by these it’s given a fancy physio label called nociceptive pain. 

Now the characteristic of this pain doesn’t necessarily have to be a burning sensation. It can also be experienced as a tingling, numbing, electricity-like pain that can shoot down your limbs. Chances are you’ve hit your ‘funny bone’ before and experienced how intense this pain can be. By the way, you’re not technically hitting a bone… you’re hitting a nerve with blunt force. Hence the tingling numbness that shoots towards your wrist.

Now an important concept to grasp is that this type of pain rarely refers back up your body, towards your head. This is an important feature of nerve pain. 

The burning sensation may also be felt when the nerve is not irritated by an external source (chemicals, pinching, pressure etc). This form of pain is far less common and also has a fancy physio label called neuropathic pain. Neuro = nervous system. Pathic = suffering from a condition. Some medical conditions such as diabetes increase your chances of experiencing this form of pain. 

So WHY is your neck the likely culprit? 

The neck is a part of your spine that has the most available range of motion in all directions. This makes it a common area for an injury that can spark inflammation. The nerves that leave your neck are then left susceptible to irritation via these chemicals.

With all of the movement that we ask our neck to perform we also increase the chances of a nerve being pinched between the hard and soft tissues of the body. Hence nociceptive burning pain from the neck is very common.

When we are talking about neuropathic pain, it most frequently affects the C6 and C7 nerve roots. These are the specific parts of the nerve that exit the lower part of your neck (C5 to C6 and C6 to C7 vertebral levels). When these nerve roots are affected it will refer down your arm in a predictable pattern. 

So WHAT should you do about it? 

Burning pain can be at times incredibly painful and debilitating. It takes you away from the things that you love to do recreationally and socially. Added to this it also hits you financially with days absent from work, lower productivity at work and cost of healthcare. Left untreated, burning pain can become very difficult to treat so it is very important to seek treatment PROMPTLY!

If you are experiencing burning pain then it is really important to get a physio assessment. They can give you the reassurance that there is nothing sinister at play, and help you get back to feeling 100%!

Will Neck Pain Go Away?

The first thought that comes to mind once you’ve injured yourself or started feeling pain is ‘will this go away?’ or ‘how long will this last?’

Neck pain in particular is especially unpleasant, it can limit almost every basic activity in our daily lives. Whether it’s just rolling over in bed, lifting our coffee cup in the morning or checking our mirrors whilst driving, neck pain affects almost everything!

The initial intensity of most forms of neck pain can be quite high, making us feel like we will be injured for multiple weeks or months. Reducing the uncertainty of how long the pain will last is often the first thing we all look for from a health professional, aside from some pain relief.

So what do we know about neck pain DURATION & PROGNOSIS?

• We know that 90% of all types of neck pain are considerably improved or resolved within a month!
  • In fact, most forms of neck pain are recovered mostly within the first 1-2 weeks!
  • With 80% of participants in one major study feeling comfortable to return to work after 1 week!

The above numbers are especially relevant for those without any major tissue injury – e.g. nerve root irritation or cervical fracture. Most musculoskeletal pain has no distinct singular cause – e.g. tissue injury, and arises from a complex interaction of things like stress, sleep, activity levels and local tissue strength/tolerance. 

This complex interaction of these factors is why some forms of neck pain can still PERSIST!
We know from the study quoted above that despite having considerable improvements in symptoms, after one year 47% of participants reported ongoing neck pain!

To get an understanding of how that occurs, or why your neck pain might be hanging around. It’s important to consider the various factors that can affect your pain. The image above shows how various factors contribute to making pain better or worse.

It is generally NEVER really ever ONE THING that makes pain get BETTER or WORSE!

With that all that considered – most musculoskeletal pain has a favourable natural history, getting better over time on its own. However, it is always helpful to get advice from a physio to see what is contributing to your unique pain context.

For more information on how to make neck pain better – check out our ‘How To Relieve Neck Pain’ and ‘Best Exercises For Neck Pain’ captors.

How To Relieve Neck Pain?

Neck pain is never an easy thing to manage. It can feel particularly intense compared to other areas of musculoskeletal pain due to its close proximity to our locus of attention and most of our senses (sight, hearing, smell etc). 

Because we use our neck in almost every movement in daily life, neck pain (acute or persistent) can be a very disabling experience, limiting us in all areas of our lives from work, home life, and sport/exercise.

Neck pain obviously occurs predominantly around the back of the neck, but it can also be linked with certain types of headaches, and can even present in and around the shoulder blades and shoulder joint.

For more on that read our article – ‘Neck To The Shoulder’. When neck pain is present with pain down the arm &/or hands it is more to do with a specific irritation or injury to the cervical nerve root. For more reading on this, check out our article ‘where does neck pain come from.

Before we talk about some SIMPLE & EFFECTIVE strategies for relieving neck pain, it’s important to establish some central facts about neck pain:

• In most cases, a precise pathoanatomical cause for neck pain cannot be established – or put simply, a clear issue in the tissue is not able to be identified in most cases
• Acute neck pain has a great natural history – 90% of symptoms are not present a month after initial onset

There are often some very simple things you can do to relieve your neck pain. We’ve put together our favourite tips and tricks below:

Avoid painful movements and positions for a short period of time

It seems cliché and passé to say this. However, you’ll be surprised just how much you’ll feel like pushing certain positions or movements just to test that it’s getting better, kind of like scratching at a scab before it’s fully healed.

Avoiding painful movements for a brief period of time is particularly pertinent for the endurance copers out there (as opposed to the avoidance copers) who tend to push through and persist with activities or movements despite the considerable pain and discomfort they create. 

Heat 

When it comes to neck pain, and just acute pain in general, heat is often far more helpful than ice for the relief of pain and discomfort. Whilst ice can be helpful for reducing excess swelling, it interferes with the natural inflammatory healing response.

Heat however has been shown to improve local tissue blood flow and sensitivity. Whether it’s a simple heat pack or a hot shower, using heat over the painful part of your neck can be very helpful in reducing pain in the short term. Just make sure the temperature isn’t too high, it can be easier than you think to burn yourself.

Towel Rotation Exercise

One of our favourite self-treatment strategies is the towel rotation exercise. This exercise helps to restore normal neck rotation range of motion when we have pain limiting it. To do it, wrap the towel around the part of your neck that is sore (low or high) – hold the higher part of the towel with the hand on the side you are turning towards, and the opposite hand on the lower part. 

You can either use the towel in one of two ways:

• Turn the towel to move your head and neck into a deeper rotation stretch – holding for as long as is comfortable – generally 5-15 seconds either side
• Turn the towel to move your head into a deeper rotation, then contract against the towel for 3-5 seconds, stretching a little deeper afterwards into the rotation movement. This can be repeated a few times as desired

Chin Retractions & Rotations 

Our final favourite neck pain-relieving strategy is chin retractions and rotations. Commonly these are prescribed in sitting. However, we prefer doing these in four-point kneeling (see image below) to work against the resistance of gravity.

As the muscles around the neck can seize into a protective spasm, gentle movement is required to reduce the threat perception of the nervous system. This movement is a great gentle graded exposure activity to assist in the restoration of normal neck movement. 

For this movement – go onto hands and knees, and begin with gentle chin retraction movements, like a draw sliding in and out. If that feels comfortable you can add in a few rotations with a gentle retraction of the chin to either side. It can often be helpful to draw the shoulder blades down the back during this movement to create a sense of elongation through the neck.

The Best Exercises For Neck Pain

Our bodies are meant to move. One of the biggest contributors to musculoskeletal pain generally is inactivity. When you consider our evolutionary past, and how we live currently. It’s no wonder many of us have an abundance of aches and pains. 

And yet, many of us ignore these or seek medical treatments or massages or heat packs, all only providing short term relief at best. At the centre of this is a mistaken notion, that many of us hold. A notion of seeing the body as a machine, that slowly breaks down over time and requires intermittent “check-ups” and “repairs” to suspend the inevitable. 

This notion is completely incorrect. Our bodies are capable of incredible things – rather than being machines, they’re more like trees that adapt and grow through and around the many obstacles they face.

A key process behind the PLASTICITY & ADAPTABILITY  of our bodies is the process of HORMESIS!

Hormesis is commonly defined as a beneficial or stimulatory effect caused by exposure to low doses of an agent known to be toxic at higher doses. Many of the things that keep us healthy are due to the effect of hormesis. In fact, many fruits and vegetables exert a positive effect on the body from us reacting to the antioxidants within them. 

Without regular movement – particularly aerobic and resistance exercise, we lose our adaptability and optimal functioning. A picture paints a thousand words they say – this picture below tells the tale.

As you can see – sedentary behaviours have a large cost down the line, and staying active is paramount. This is why exercise in general for neck pain is important. If the main role of our muscles is to produce and withstand force, and staying active prevents muscle atrophy, one can see how keeping the muscles of the neck and arms active can help in preventing force and strain from overly affecting the joints and nerves in the neck. 

In fact, we know from good quality research that targeted strength training in the neck and arms reduces pain in people with acute neck pain, and prevents subsequent neck pain episodes. But it can be overwhelming with the plethora of exercises out there to know which one is best. That’s why the team at TYBA physio have collaborated and agreed on our two favourite exercises that we feel are best for managing and preventing neck pain:

The Upright Row

The Upright row can be done with either dumbbells or a resistance band – as pictured above. Initially, it’s best to find a level of resistance that you can do 12-15x repetitions with for 2x sets. 

The Standing or Seated Row 

The standing or seated row requires either a cable or dedicated row machine in the gym or can be done at home as pictured above using a resistance band. As with the upright row – it is best, to begin with, a level of resistance that you can do 12-15x repetitions with for 2x sets.

These exercises are recommended to be done between 4-5 times a week at the recommended two sets of 12-15x repetitions per day. You can either do two days on, then a rest day, or do five days straight with the weekend off. After 3-5 weeks – try a thicker resistance band or heavier weight and reduce the repetitions per set to 8-10 repetitions.

Who To See With Neck Pain?

If you’re suffering neck pain then you know far too well the HUGE impact it can have on your life!

Neck pain hits all the notes… Emotionally, socially and economically! Frustrating, isolating and restricting!

• It can keep you from doing the things you love to do!
• It can interfere with your ability to mingle with friends or be present with your family!
• It can reduce your productivity at work or keep you from it entirely!

If you can relate to any of this then it’s time to do something about it! It’s time for you to do what anyone in pain does… Pull out your phone and ask Dr Google: 

Question: Who to see with neck pain?” 

Answer: A Physiotherapist!

Here’s WHY…

Physiotherapists are ELITE health professionals. They are highly skilled clinicians and are considered the MASTERS of the musculoskeletal world. Being first contact primary professionals since 1976, they are trained in detecting sinister causes of a person’s pain and have the ability to refer for medical imaging if necessary. 

We at TYBA Physio are considered INTEGRATIVE PHYSIOTHERAPISTS.  Whilst we have a strong understanding of the physiology of your injury through years of study and learning, being an INTEGRATIVE PHYSIOTHERAPIST means we consider all of the other contributing factors that may be impeding your health and your injury. 

These are the things that aren’t normally taught in universities and textbooks, yet they play such a major role in how you respond to your recovery. Some of these factors include the internal and external stresses you have in your life, what your injury restricts you from being able to do and how these challenges are driving your symptoms. Once we understand this, we can better gauge how to guide you out of pain and back to doing what you love!

At TYBA Physio, this patient-centred approach is the essential way to getting you the best outcomes. We take the time in ensuring you get the most out of your experience at our clinic. 

After you book a consult with us, the first time you come into the clinic, your integrative physio will complete a thorough assessment of your history, an in-depth goal & value setting process and some additional physical testing. 

First and foremost your physio will take the time to listen to your full story and how it’s impacting your life. Your physio will then complete a comprehensive assessment, provide a diagnosis and detailed explanation of what factors may be driving your pain, followed by a comprehensive treatment plan to recalibrate your body’s own environment to heal itself. We will focus on ‘YOU’ as a person and try our very best to have you actively engaged in your own recovery!

We don’t fix you, you fix yourself. We just guide you to create the environment for you to heal and grow.