Neck-Shoulder Syndrome

A considerable portion of patients who came to Bethune Oriental Medical Center for treatment have neck pain and shoulder pain symptoms. These are commonly accompanied with symptoms of muscle stiffness and tension in the neck.  When the patient forces neck movement, the pain will aggravate in the shoulder and elbow areas, associated with abnormal sensation stretching from shoulder to fingertips and numbness in the arms and fingers.  Mild tremor in the arm may occur in some cases, which may aggravate when the patient feels emotional tension or stress. I believe many friends have such symptoms in various degrees.  The main reason lies in the way of modern life and work which makes the symptoms unavoidable.  Generally, we call these symptoms as neck-shoulder syndrome.

Neck-shoulder syndrome refers to the clinical symptoms of soreness, pain, fatigue, illness and dysfunction of the parallel muscles in the neck, shoulder and elbow areas.  It is a common disease and also a disease most difficult to treat. The most common cause of the neck-shoulder syndrome is poor posture.  If one maintains the same posture for too long, the muscles around the neck and shoulders will become tense leading to soreness after an extending period.

Early symptoms of the neck-shoulder syndrome include dizziness, fatigue in the neck and should areas.  They can be cured with appropriate physical activities and relaxation or short term external treatment.  If these early symptoms are ignored, the disease may develop into intermediate stage with such symptoms as muscle spasm in the neck and shoulder areas, neck stiffness and soreness and pain in the arms.  At this stage, the neck vertebrae begin to deteriorate but it is still reversible.  Careful treatment can help avoid the deterioration and the pathological changes in the tissues can be cured.  Appropriate treatment with Chinese Medicine can quickly release the symptoms.  Recurrence can be prevented with proper physical exercises and correct posture.  If no treatment is provided in the intermediate stage, the case will develop into the final stage with excessive bone tissue development, the protrusion of inter-vertebra disc and narrowing vertebra channel.  In this stage, the treatment will become extremely difficult.  Therefore, any discomfort in the neck and shoulder area should be treated as early as possible.

Neck-shoulder syndrome is one of the cases for which acupuncture treatment is most appropriate.  That is to say, acupuncture treatment in combination with other therapies is very effective for the neck-shoulder syndrome.  The treatment generally follows the following steps:

Differential anylysis to identify the causes:  Appropriate treatment by traditional Chinese Medicine is always closely associated with accurate dialectical analysis.  Different treatment plans and different acupuncture points and chosen for different symptoms.

Local palpation to determine the Meridian:  There are many causes to neck and shoulder pains and they are very complex.  Therefore, it is very important to apply palpation  to identify the pain spots.  Identifying the location of the disease and relevant meridians is significant to dialectical diagnosis and appropriate selection of the acupuncture points.

Careful application of acupuncture and smoothing the meridians:  the method of acupuncture application in association with other therapies is directly related to the effectiveness of treatment.  Therefore, careful attention must be paid to the method of acupuncture application, the patient’s sensation towards the acupuncture.

Acupuncture doctors must focus on the treatment and apply the acupuncture in a soft and delicate way.  The patient needs to relax and maintain a good attitude, appreciate the conduction mode and direction of the acupuncture sensation, cooperate with the doctor's treatment to achieve the best effectiveness of the treatment.