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The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks

This page lists all 141 updates for one book on PainScience.com, The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks. See also:


showing of all-time updates

LFeb 19The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New chapter, medical testing — A significant new overview of medical testing for specific causes of back pain, one of those “basic” topics that was missing from the original, quirkier version of the book for too many years. This is a good step towards rounding it out and making it a more complete guide to the topic for a wider range of readers.
LFeb 19The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New chapter, physical exam reliability — Major new chapter, adding much more detail (2800 words!) about the art and science of diagnosing specific causes of neck pain with a physical examination.
MFeb '23The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Revised, specific diagnosis — After several years without much attention, this chapter has finally gotten a variety of improvements.
S2022The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Added footnote, “woke up with it” neck pain — Explained and justifed my opinion that morning onset cricks may often be related to the combination of chilling neck skin at night.
S2021The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New silly treatment, frenuloplasty — Added frenuloplasty to the hall of treatment shame.
L2020The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section, positional release — Adapted and expanded from an old chapter in my muscle pain book, with more detail and a neck pain example.
M2020The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update, — No obvious changes, but I carefully reviewed and upgraded and fine-tuned some of the referencing in this section. I also added a bit about the history of prejudice against whiplash patients.
L2020The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New chapter, coat hanger pain.
M2020The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Improved — A thorough editing and cleanup, with some information added, most notably the most positive science on the topic.
S2020The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update, — A nail-in-coffin study of needling for neck pain has been published. I may never have to update this chapter ever again. (Ha, fat chance!)
L2020The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Added case study — An interesting and credible case study about a clear case of spinal degeneration with counter-intuitive consequences.
M2019The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added several interesting details about nerve root compression symptom pattern variability, with references.
L2019The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section, cannabinoids (finally)
M2019The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Significant revision — To be candid, my comparisons of neck and back pain seemed a little boring and not all that helpful when I reviewed them recently, so I put in some work to make the chapter more useful and interesting.
S2019The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor addition — Adding a little information about inversion tables for neck traction.
M2019The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Optimized — A rewrite inspired by recent work on a dedicated article about vulnerability to chronic pain. This chapter is now both shorter and yet actually broader in scope.
S2019The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added a citation to Mäntyselkä about the relationship between neck pain and being out of shape.
S2019The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update, muscle pain chapter — Updated references related to the relationship between trigger points and headache.
M2019The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Expanded — Miscellaneous improvements, and I added discussion of the “space making” surgeries (e.g. posterior cervical laminoforaminotomy).
M2019The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor upgrade — Added some information about the craving for stretch, its implications, and the problem with trying to stretch the suboccipitals.
L2019The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section, about reassuring explanations for why neck pain is so common.
L2019The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section, “The usual suspects: tackling the things that make all kinds of pain worse”
M2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Upgraded — There’s a new sub-section about the role of stress in any kind of chronic pain, and bunch of revision so that the section is more focused on the concept of vulnerability. This is a setup for more practical advice, still to come, about how to attempt to be less vulnerable.
M2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Expanded, dry needling chapter — Added quite a lot of information, especially about risks and harms and how needling supposedly works. This is now a fully-fledged topic summary.
L2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Major addition, ‘core’ strength section — Added a substantial new sub-topic: “What if it’s about the coordination, not strength/endurance?” And a minor but fun addition about the DCFs being the “psoas of the neck.” Added anatomy diagram.
L2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Rewritten — I started over from scratch on the topic of “spasm.” What I’d written previously was much too simplistic. This chapter is now bigger and more interesting.
M2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Substantial editing, neuropathy sections — Merged content from the back and neck pain tutorials, resulting in major upgrades to two important sections in both books.
M2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Substantial editing, neuropathy sections — Merged content from the back and neck pain tutorials, resulting in major upgrades to two important sections in both books.
L2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Complete book edit — Top-to-bottom edit of the book, the first ever. Described in more detail in a blog post.
S2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Added the revelation that literally all of the very weak studies supporting DCF training are probably fraudulent.
L2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section — A new standard chapter for most PainScience.com tutorials summarizing several key concepts about placebo.
L2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section, “Training the deep cervical flexors”
L2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Revised, ergonomics section — Substantial miscellaneous modernization. In particular, much more useful information on the critical distinction between “poor posture” and “postural stress.”
M2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added several references about the long term risks of joint popping, a paragraph about the short-term risks, and a citation about what causes joint popping.
M2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Revision, spinal manipulation section — Clarified the important distinction between hazard and risk.
L2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section — More information about dry needling in its own chapter now, a neglected sub-topic; it has always been covered in the companion book about trigger points, but a good summary here in the neck pain book is long overdue.
M2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Revision, microbreaking section — Substantial improvements, harmonizing with the ergonomics revision. Much stronger focus on the scientific case for microbreaking despite the lack of evidence that stagnacy is a problem in the first place. Added a practical tip, and a comic.
M2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Upgrade — Added much more detail about the crisis in orthopedic surgeries — very important context — and more detail to the descriptions of surgical options.
L2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Major improvements — Extensive new material about the relationship between neuropathy and neck pain, focused on clues that neuropathy is a factor in a case of chronic neck pain.
S2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor improvement — Added a footnote about the long-term risks of poor neck posture and text neck.
L2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Re-write — I threw 90% of this section away and started over with a much stronger focus on the interesting question of whether or not “cervicogenic headache” is even a thing. It’s a like-new section, now with much more useful diagnostic clues.
S2018The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor science update — Added some references about the reliability of subluxation diagnosis.
S2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Cited Chumbley et al on traction for neck pain in … fighter jet pilots!
L2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section.
L2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Change of position, on diagnostic nerve blocks — After reviewing the same scientific papers previously cited more carefully, I decided that they were much less promising than I originally thought. The section has flip-flopped from optimism to pessimism about nerve blocks without a single change in what’s actually cited, just a change in the level of diligence in interpreting the science. I’ve also added more detail and references.
M2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update, stretching section — Brought some more science to this discussion, especially Sandler et al on a link between stretching and back pain, and Tunwattanapong et al with modestly good news. Plus a bunch of editing.
M2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Upgraded, discussion of massage and nerve trauma — Added much more information about massage “endangerment sites,” discussion of the potential relevance of neuritis, extensive clarifications and editing.
S2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Finally added some basic information about “text neck” — mostly that it’s not actually a thing, and a good example of bogus information about neck pain.
S2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Finally brought a little science to support the claim that trigger points complicate injury. More needed, but it’s a start.
M2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Revision, the role of trigger points in neck pain — This section was aging poorly. Reviewing it recently, it seemed too much like I was defensively explaining a pet theory (and I suppose I was). So I’ve done some thorough revision to bring it up to my current standards: less overconfidence, more science.
M2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Upgraded, tool massage section — Added some more detailed safety advice and discussion of vibrating massage tools. Removed and de-emphasized a couple tools. Better images. Thorough editing the whole section.
M2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New tip — Added a weird bonus strengthening tip based on Smith et al, which showed that clenching leg muscles reduced pain everywhere in patients with chronic neck pain.
M2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science upgrade — More evidence on how much (or little) pain is caused by cervical disc herniations, plus other miscellaneous citations and clarifications. Removed the interesting claim that herniations decrease with age — the reference for that was no longer persuasive.
M2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Revision — Added an example of SMT injury and a footnote about fearmongering, and then found myself editing the whole section.
M2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Widespread minor improvements to complete the integration of central sensitization into the book. The neck pain book is now fully sensitive about sensitization!
S2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Integrated discussion of central sensitization, reframing the “confidence cure” as treatment for central sensitization.
S2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update, trigger points intro — Light editing, plus a new paragraph and citation to Morikawa et al, an odd little study showing that neck massage is relaxing, or possibly more.
S2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Edited, medications section — Several minor miscellaneous clarifications and elaborations, and some additional references.
M2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Revised, section on nerve blocks etc. — Thoroughly revised section and, unfortunately, a reversal from optimism to pessimism about the efficacy of nerve blocks.
M2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Expanded — Added important red flag information about artery tears with pain as the only symptom.
M2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Revision — Modernization and expansion; added more information about surgical options in particular.
L2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section — Tips and a checklist for trying to estimate how much your neck pain might be about sensitization.
S2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Correction — An evidence-based correction regarding computer display position.
L2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Big upgrade — Continued to beef up the science of psychological risk factors, and also added much more about other kinds of risk factors. The section almost doubled in size.
S2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Two key new citations to support the idea that the state of muscle tissue is a big factor in neck pain.
S2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — A paragraph about genetic vulnerability to persistent neuropathic pain.
L2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section — Substantial new section about sensitization, an important perspective on chronic neck pain.
S2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Solid little science update based on Nakashima et al, showing huge numbers of intervertebral disc bulges in healthy people.
M2017The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Upgraded — Several good red flag clarifications and a couple interesting new references about spinal cord compression.
M2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Significant revision and some important new citations more firmly establishing the link between psychological and lifestyle factors and poor recovery from neck pain. Previously this section relied too much on similar evidence about other problems: it is now more neck-centric.
S2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added some useful new indirect evidence about SMT for migraine (Chaibi et al).
M2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Edited — Added some important footnotes and clarifications.
M2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Edited — Thorough revision and modernization. Although I revised this section a mere five years ago, it needed it again!
L2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section — More than a thousand new words on the topic of neck cracking.
S2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Revised the introduction to treatments for clarity and completeness, added new references, and a new short paragraph about risks and harms.
L2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Major update — Broadened scope of section to include all pain killers. Added a summary of opioids, and a guide to experimenting with the over-the-counter meds; added more science; merged and edited previously separate sections on rebound pain and muscle relaxants.
S2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Correction — Removed overconfident statements about the clinical significance of the effects of psychoactive drugs, plus related minor updates.
S2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Some editing and new caveats.
M2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Update — Added new intro to section about distorted body image.
S2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added citation about the efficacy of ibuprofen for headache.
S2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added some particularly good science to shore up the personal anecdote added in January.
S2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Improved — Added a new key point about how to recognize the pain of a nerve root pinch.
S2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — New footnote supporting the use of education (like this tutorial!) to treat chronic pain.
S2016The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Added a good personal anecdote … because my spine is degenerating! Also, a footnote about surprisingly painless joint damage.
S2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added some hard evidence on the minor (non-lethal) risks of SMT from Carlesso 2010.
S2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added an interesting reference to Carlesso 2013 with some discussion of the implications.
S2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added a humility citation, conceding the absence of scientific evidence that massage helps neck pain. Also, modernization summary of trigger point therapy.
S2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added a little more information about the nature of uncovertebral joints.
M2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Upgraded — More and clearer red flag details, especially about spinal cord trouble (myelopathy).
L2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Major update — Completely rewritten and greatly expanded, with much more science, emphasizing strength as a worthwhile treatment option.
M2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Revised — Editing and some new science about changing head posture.
S2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — More data on neck pain recovery rates.
S2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor addition — Added a patient anecdote about a strange muscle spasm experience … which I know all too well.
S2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Added an expert quote.
S2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added brief example of nerve pinch by vertebral artery twistiness.
M2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added three good references and a diagram about how much “wiggle” room nerve roots have.
M2015The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Expanded — Added about 350 words about neck circle safety.
S2014The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added a new good-news study about massage for neck pain.
S2014The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Upgraded references on neck pain recovery rates.
S2014The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added some important acknowledgements that the science of trigger points is a bit half-baked, and linked out to much more information for the curious.
M2014The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — More content — Explanation of the difference between a subluxation and a MID.
S2014The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added citation to a key 2012 study of the effectiveness of adjustment for neck pain.
L2014The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New — A new section, but also a summary of an existing free article.
S2013The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor yoga update — Added a reference and paragraph about the risks of yoga, which are minor but real, especially for neck pain.
S2013The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor science update — Added a tiny, flawed study about yoga for neck pain (for what little it’s worth).
S2013The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New evidence — Rare good news: the first good quality scientific test showing that reducing fear is actually good medicine. The section got a decent editing as well.
L2013The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section.
S2012The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added evidence that the stakes are high with chronic pain: it may even shorten lives.
S2012The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Added a key reference about the effectiveness of massage for back pain, with the (safe) assumption that it probably applies to neck pain as well.
S2012The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — Interesting evidence that massage therapists cannot reliably find the side of pain by feel.
S2012The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Science update — A new study shows that massage therapists cannot reliably find the side of pain by feel — good evidence that no gross spasm (or other structural factor) is usually involved.
S2012The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Added some creative problem-solving for hot climates.
S2011The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Added a minor but odd note about “sensory annoyances” like hats and collars.
S2011The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Added some unusual research about the risks heavy metal “head-banging” — a fun example, for perspective.
M2011The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — More content — Added scientific cases studies, examples, pictures and video of true dislocation and abnormal anatomy to help drive home the point that even significant spinal joint dysfunction can be surprisingly harmless … never mind subtle joint problems.
S2011The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor science update — Cited a study about yoga and stretching for back pain.
L2011The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section — This section is a summary of an important concept that’s been available in a free article since late 2008, but also needed to be emphasized here. Now it is.
S2011The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Added a reference about the poor overall quality of online information about common injuries. See Starman et al.
M2011The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Added a fun thing — I can’t believe I didn’t know about inflatable neck extenders until now!
L2011The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section — More information about an important characteristic of muscle-dominated neck pain.
M2011The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Major update — Totally renovated section: re-written, reformatted, expanded, upgraded. A few new checklist items were added, most were expanded, and all were clarified. A separate and handier “quick” checklist was added to the existing “slow” checklist.
L2011The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Major update — Major improvements to the table of contents, and the display of information about updates like this one. Sections now have numbers for easier reference and bookmarking. The structure of the document has really been cleaned up in general, making it significantly easier for me to update the tutorial — which will translate into more good content for readers. Care for more detail? Really? Here’s the full announcement.
M2011The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Upgraded — New artwork from PainScience.com artist Gary Lyons, plus some important new references.
M2010The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Updated — Updated with an important story about a disastrous example of neck stretching that backfired. Not just for customers: this particular section is a short version of a new free article.
S2010The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Some good new science cited in the introduction, about the overall effectiveness of manual therapies. See D’Sylva et al.
L2010The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Major Update — Rewriting and expansion of the Special Supplement on spinal manipulative therapy.
M2010The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Update — New science confirms that helmets do not cause neck injuries — they just keep your head safe. However, minor injury remains likely and problematic.
M2010The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Updated — Added a much more detailed description of the Hancock et al study, and in fact turned it into the main substance of this section.
S2010The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New cover — At last! E-book finally has a “cover.”
S2010The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Update with another recent study showing that strength training doesn’t work.
L2010The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Major update — Completely overhauled and substantially expanded, and polished several relevant bibliographic records.
M2010The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Rewritten — Completely overhauled and substantially expanded, and polished several relevant bibliographic records.
S2009The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Minor update — Shored up substantiation of the relationship between migraines and trigger points.
L2009The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — New section, provocative discography.
M2009The Complete Guide to Neck Pain & Cricks — Huge upgrade — Over the past several months, the neck pain tutorial has more than quadrupled the amount of information it offers, and it is now book-length at more than 40,000 words. Almost every single section was overhauled, and many new sections were added. Dozens of references to more recent scientific research were integrated and their significance explained, including several good new studies less than six months old.

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