Symptoms

Initially, patients with tense neck muscles feel a mostly local pressure on the corresponding muscle areas. If this does not lead to a relaxation of the muscles, a hardening of the muscles soon develops, which can also then affect the surrounding nerve tracts. This leads to moderate to severe pain.

The pain is described as biting or cutting. Painful tension in the neck is accompanied by a variety of accompanying symptoms:

Neck pain/stiff neck
Tension headache: Often described as mild to moderate in intensity, pulling or pressing on both sides of the head.
Shoulder and back pain: This pain is often caused by a hardening of the trapezius muscle (M. trapezius).
Numbness, circulatory disorders, restricted arm/hand movement: Nerve and conduction pathways located in the neck, which are pinched off due to severely tense muscles, can lead to the above-mentioned symptoms.
Dizziness, nausea, vomiting: This can also be caused by pinched nerves.
Ear pain: The neck muscles and the muscles around the ear are closely connected, so the pain can radiate to the ear. It is perceived as lying in the ear.
Tinnitus: Tinnitus can occur especially in cases of psychological stress as the cause of neck tension.
In this case, tinnitus can also cause hardening of the neck muscles due to its high level of suffering. On the other hand, an increased muscle tone of the described muscles can also cause the tinnitus.

Hardened and tense muscles in the neck and throat area are the main cause of neck pain. These can lead to poor posture, which in turn leads to further tension.

In the worst case, this results in a vicious circle that can only be broken by active relaxation and pain treatment. Normally, however, neck pain has a serious cause only in the rarer cases and passes by itself after a few days. If the pain is chronic, the cause should always be clarified.

However, the cause can be varied and ranges from abscesses (purulent swelling in the throat area) to rheumatic diseases and scoliosis (crooked back) to meningitis (inflammation of the meninges). In addition to stiffness and pain in the neck, this is manifested by fever, nausea, headaches and disturbances of consciousness. Neck tension and headaches – what is the connection?

Tension headaches often occur as an accompanying symptom of neck tension, but the exact cause has not yet been clearly determined. So-called secondary headaches emerge as a symptom in existing diseases, for example as a side effect of taking medication, vascular diseases or damage to nerves in the head, face or cervical vertebrae.These are therefore directly related to neck tensions. The pain can radiate from a hardened trapezius muscle, from deep short neck muscles and from a specific nerve, the occipitalis major nerve.

The trapezius muscle runs across the cervical spine to its base at the back of the head and the occipital nerve passes through this muscle to sensitively innervate the back of the head. Tension in the neck area can irritate the nerves located there, which reduces pain tolerance and the pain threshold. Headaches can manifest themselves in different forms and to varying degrees.

In most cases, it is an extremely pulling and pulsating pain, which severely restricts the patient’s well-being and movement possibilities. The headache usually becomes stronger when fast, jerky and unusual movements are made. Tension headaches, however, are more characterized by a non-pulsating, “vice-like” pain that occurs on both sides of the head, does not cause nausea and does not restrict routine head and neck movements.

Neck tension and chest pain – What is the connection? Tension in the neck can radiate to the chest and cause tension in the chest muscles, the muscles between the ribs or other respiratory muscles that are attached to the back. Chest pain is dependent on breathing, i.e. depending on how deeply one breathes in or out, the pain is also perceived to varying degrees.

It is often described as an armor-like and oppressive feeling around the chest, which leads to shallower breathing. Shallow breathing in turn reduces the oxygen supply to the body, leading to fatigue and weakness. With a self-massage or visits to physiotherapy, the tension and pain can often be relieved.

Preventive measures such as exercise should be taken and excessive sitting with a “round back” and other risk factors should be avoided. Also psychological causes can often lead to chest pain due to tension and must also be excluded. Nausea is a symptom that can have many causes.

Long-lasting tension, pain and psychological causes, such as strong excitement and fear can cause nausea. It is caused by an irritation of the vomiting center, which is located in the medulla oblongata (extended spinal cord). It forms the transition between spinal cord and brain.

Various messenger substances (neurotransmitters) irritate the nausea center and transmit information from the body, causing nausea and usually a subsequent nausea stimulus. If neck tension becomes severe or chronic, the person affected is often exposed to long-lasting pain and a state of tension in the body, which can result in nausea. Why am I dizzy?

Dizziness is a common symptom that can occur for all kinds of reasons and in different ways. It is now known that a number of receptors are located in various muscle groups, connective tissues and fasciae, from the sole of the foot to the neck, and from the muscles in the eyes and forehead area to the neck, which help maintain balance and can lead to dizziness attacks when irritated. Tension in the neck area is a permanent contraction that can deliberately not be easily released.

This permanently causes the receptors located there to be blocked, which in turn causes balance signals to be transmitted incorrectly to the brain. In the case of acute dizziness, it helps to lie down, drink fluids and elevate the legs to stimulate the blood flow. It is not necessarily obvious that neck tensions can be related to high blood pressure.

However, it has often been observed that when neck tensions are relieved by a chiropractor, the blood pressure is subsequently stabilized. High blood pressure and neck tension are symptoms that can have many causes. These causes are similar in many cases: In addition, experts talk about the fact that the neck muscles are connected to certain areas of the brain.

These areas of the brain are responsible for regulating blood pressure, heartbeat and breathing. If the muscles located there are tense, incorrect information can be passed on, which can have an effect on blood pressure.The reason why the neck muscles are connected to this area of the brain can be described by the fact that the blood pressure must always be kept constant. It is therefore independent of posture.

The neck muscles are loaded differently when lying down than when standing and are therefore a good source of information about the position of the body.

Stress and permanent strain
Little movement
Poor sleep

The neck muscles are closely connected to those of the eye. If the neck muscles are tense, it is usually due to the eye muscles and vice versa.

So if there is a defective vision, the head position is automatically adjusted unnaturally. If myopia or hyperopia is not corrected, the head is stretched forward or pulled backward. The neck muscles suffer from this and tension can occur.

These usually occur at midday when the eyes have been in motion for several hours and are often caused by long monitor work. Tensions can be avoided by taking more breaks in everyday office life. If the neck tension arises in any other way, the jamming of vessels and nerve tracts in the neck area can also impair vision.

The vessels that run through the neck area often end in the head area. The following circulatory disturbance leads to impaired vision. These can manifest themselves individually from person to person and range from flickering and flashes of light in the field of vision to impaired visual acuity.

If severe eye complaints are present, it is recommended to consult an ophthalmologist to make sure that they are related to neck tension. People with tinnitus hear a sound that objectively usually does not exist. This noise can be a whistling, hissing or buzzing sound, which can be heard in one ear only or in both ears, and sometimes temporarily or continuously by the patient.

The development of tinnitus is multifaceted and still not fully understood. There are approaches to explain it in psychological stress, continuous noise exposure, various ear diseases and muscle tension. If the neck muscles are tense, the tinnitus is caused by pinched or blocked vessels and irritated nerve tracts.

The hearing center and the neck muscles are anatomically very close to each other, which means that the reduced blood circulation and the irritation of the nerve root in the neck area can lead to a misdirection of auditory information from the nerves in the ear area. Tinnitus, which is perceived in the rhythm of the beating heart, is usually due to tension in the sternocleidomastoid muscle (Musculus sternocleidomastoideus), which is located in the immediate vicinity of the bilateral carotid artery (Ateria carotis communis). If the carotid artery is compressed, the heartbeat is perceived as noise in the ear.

Swallowing difficulties can have numerous causes. A distinction is made between dysphagia (complaints without further pain) and odynophagia (complaints with accompanying sore throat). Swallowing is a complicated process involving many nerves and muscles that must work in harmony.

It is partly random and partly involuntary. If muscle hardening occurs during neck tension or if nerves are pinched or pinched, the swallowing process can suffer. Malpositions of the cervical spine, which are often accompanied by neck tension, can also have a negative effect on the swallowing process. Spondylosis deformans, a reshaping of individual vertebrae, is an example of this.