All posts by Kathryn Merrow

Self Help

You Can Get Rid Of The Knots In Your Upper Back Naturally

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Louise contacted me because she had muscle spasms in her upper back.

Here is the response I got from Louise when I asked her if she had success getting rid of the muscle ‘knots’ in her upper back after we talked.  You will discover the age of this vibrant woman in the last sentence of her message.  🙂

Yes,  I am much improved and I did it myself through massage and exercise. I have found lifting the rib cage when I take my mile walk helpful.

I do a 15 minute weight program using 4 lb. weights 4 times a week.  Every morning before getting out of bed I do a stretch routine I take a baby aspirin at bedtime and no more than twice a week I take one not two Aleves.

I am very careful about medication.  I entertain a great deal and play golf, bridge and I am in a book club but I am finding I am having to rest more.

The doctor tells me it could be because I am 87 year old.  Thanks for checking on me.  Louise

Here’s what I wrote back to Louise:

Good job!  I wish more people would be as proactive as you are.  🙂

Lifting the rib cage is always helpful.  I do it all day long.  Gravity sure does like to pull on us!

I am happy to hear you are so active.  That’s what’s keeping you young.

If you are not taking a good vitamin-mineral supplement you might consider doing that.  Some folks say we can get all we need from a good diet but the description of ‘good diet’ varies widely.

Louise, I am going to turn your email into an article to show people how they can take care of themselves because  I love sharing good healing stories like yours. 🙂

Keep taking good care of you,

Kathryn
The Pain Relief Coach

You can discover more about what Louise did and how to get rid of your own muscle knots forever at Knots In Your Back Gone!

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Shoulder Pain, Upper Back Muscle Knots, Upper Back Pain

Burning Pain Between Your Spine And Shoulder Blade

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Trapezius Muscle Trigger PointsDo you have burning pain on one or both sides of your spine?  Does it look like one of the red pain patterns on the right side of the picture?  It may be the trapezius muscle.  As you see, there is one on each half of your body.

The trapezius muscles can cause pain on the tops of the shoulders, near the spine, on the inner side of the shoulder blade toward the spine and even on the back of your skull!

This picture shows trigger points.  The trigger points are indicated by the X‘s.  Those are the places to apply pressure (approximately) in order to get rid of the red areas.  The red areas indicate painful areas.

If your shoulder pain pattern is approximately where any of the the red is in the picture, applying pressure to the appropriate X may help get rid of the pain between your spine and shoulder blade!

Here are directions Continue reading Burning Pain Between Your Spine And Shoulder Blade →

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Neck Pain, Self Help, Upper Back Pain

Shoulder Hiker Muscle Causes Pain In Upper Back And Neck

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What Shoulder Muscle Causes Pain In Upper Back And Neck?

Muscles are the most common cause of pain in the upper back and neck.

The levator scapulae muscle is also called the ‘shoulder hiker.’  It lifts or hikes your shoulder blade.  The levator scapulae is responsible for a lot of upper back and neck pain.

Trigger Points Cause Upper Back and Neck Pain

Shoulder Hiker Muscle

Trigger points are hyper-irritable areas of muscle that cause pain elsewhere, sometimes at a great distance from the trigger point.  Trigger points can be in the shoulder hiker muscle and, when they are, they cause pain around the upper back and shoulder blade.

In this picture, you can see the shoulder hiker muscle.  You are looking at the back side of a body.

The muscle attaches to the bones of your neck and to your shoulder blade on the innermost top part.

  1. If trigger points develop in this muscle it will cause pain where the muscle is.

2. It will also cause pain along the spine side of your shoulder blade down to the bottom of the shoulder blade.

3. And it can cause pain at the back of your shoulder on the top of your arm.

If it always feels like your shoulders are creeping up to your ears, this guy is the culprit.  The levator scapulae has become shortened because you held your shoulders hiked and the muscle got used to being in that position.

It may also have developed trigger points that need to be released.  If you do not help the muscle relax and/or release the trigger points you will continue to have pain in your upper back and neck.

What can you do to help this muscle relax?

1.  You can use a pressure tool or finger to press into the levator scapulae muscle.  Press at the crook of your neck where your neck meets your shoulder.

Look for very tender areas.  That is where you want to apply pressure.  Also press where the muscle meets the top of the shoulder blade.  Those are the two areas where trigger points tend to be.

2.  You can go to a professional massage therapist who can warm and relax the muscle (and others around it) with manual pressure and massage.  He or she will work the length of the muscle to help it stretch and settle it down.

A trigger point therapist can get rid of the triggers that are causing the pain in your neck and upper back.  They can also help you get rid of the CAUSES of your trigger points!

3.  You can lift your shoulders to your ears.

Hike them waaay up and hold for twenty seconds or so.  This will tire the shoulder hiker muscle so it will start to weaken and relax.  You can do this several times.  (But use sense.  Too many times can make the muscles ache from overuse just as any new exercise program can.)

What Activities Cause Pain In Upper Back And Neck?

The stress of poor, collapsed posture will cause the shoulder hiker muscle to complain.  So can Continue reading Shoulder Hiker Muscle Causes Pain In Upper Back And Neck →

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Self Help, Upper Back Muscle Knots, Upper Back Pain

Four Ways to Use a Tennis Ball to Get Rid of Knots in Your Back Naturally!

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Got muscle “knots” in your upper back?

Tennis balls make really nice tools to get rid of muscle spasms in your back.  This doesn’t work for all knots, however.

It’s actually better to figure out the cause(s) of your muscle “knots” but here we go!

(1)  I recommend laying on a tennis ball so gravity and the weight of your body do all the work.  Place the ball under your body as you lie on your back.  Let the ball press on a muscle knot for about 5 minutes and then shift a bit to the next most tender knot.

If it’s too much for you to lie on the floor, you could pad the floor to make it easier.  Only lie on a bed if absolutely necessary, because the therapy ball will be lost in the softness of a mattress.  It will not be as effective.

(2) You can put a tennis ball in a sock or sack and hold it behind you with the open end of the sack in your hand.  Then you can lean against a wall and the ball will be between you and the wall.

I believe it’s more effective to use the floor but you might not want to lie down at work.

(3)  You can thoughtfully place a tennis ball or similar ball in front of your shoulder and upper arm and hold static pressure or roll the ball to massage the area.

The muscles in the front of the body get short and tight from everyday living and can cause strain and muscle spasm in your back.

(4)  Stand and support yourself in a doorway while rolling one foot back and forth over a therapy ball with pressure.  This helps relax and normalize foot and leg muscles so you can have better posture.

Better posture means less back pain. 🙂

Here’s the e-mail response I got from Rich about tennis ball therapy and the knots in his back.  He has some good ideas!

> Hello Kathryn,
>
> Tried the tennis balls but I just crushed them.  Switched to Lacrosse balls
> and they seem to help. However, when you hit the “spot”, it will bring tears
> to your eyes.

(3)  I found that if I start at Continue reading Four Ways to Use a Tennis Ball to Get Rid of Knots in Your Back Naturally! →

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Self Help, Shoulder Pain, Upper Back Pain

Tight Shoulders? Here are 6 Ways to Help Your Shoulders Relax

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Tight muscles in your shoulders?  Here are six things you can do to help your poor shoulders feel better.

  1. Get out of stressful situations!  🙂  Well, as much as you can.
  2. Lift your shoulders and roll them backward.  Up and back.  Up and back.
  3. Hike your shoulders up to your ears.  Hold them there for 20 seconds.  That will cause them to fatigue or be tired.  Let them drop.
  4. Throw a baseball or softball.  That uses the shoulders in a balanced way and helps the muscles relax.
  5. Toss rocks into a pond.  See if you can make the rocks skip.  This uses your shoulder muscles and distracts your mind.
  6. Place ice packs on the tops of your shoulders.  Leave them there until you start to feel numbness.  The cold packs will help your muscles relax by bringing in more blood.

It’s helpful if you can figure out what caused your shoulders to tighten up in the first place.  Most often it’s posture.

People often say, “It’s stress.”  Stress can be a part of it because we assume certain positions when we feel stressed.

Still, most often it’s posture.

Work at lifting your chest and the crown of your head.  If you have a “flat” lower back work on sticking your butt out a little.  You are supposed to have a slight curve behind your waist, like a toddler.

And, after all, your shoulders are attached to your back.

Try any of the six ways to help your shoulders relax and let me know which works best for you!

And if you need more help for your tight shoulders, check out Knots In Your Back Gone!

 

 

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Self Help, Shoulder Pain, Stress, Upper Back Muscle Knots

How Does Stress Cause Knots in Your Shoulder Muscles

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get rid of muscles knots upper backDo you know that stress can cause muscle knots in your upper back?  It’s true.  Read on…

Do you remember the science fiction suspense television series called The Twilight Zone?

Let’s enter now into the Twilight Zone of Knots In Your Back.

Host Rod Serling often said “Imagine this”:  (So, Imagine this:)

You are driving.  Traffic is moving fast.  Big trucks are all around, weaving in and out.

Other drivers are tail-gating.

The sun is hitting the car windows ahead of you and blasting right into your eyes.  The driver behind you is blaring his horn.

You are almost out of gas and have no money to get more!

Do you feel your shoulders lifting and tightening up yet?

The other muscles to tighten would be your jaw and neck.  Your head moves forward; your chin juts out.

You have mental stress when you are in a tight situation like the heavy traffic.  Mental stress causes changes in the way you hold your body so your muscles contract–they become tight.

Tight muscles cause discomfort.  Bodies just don’t like to be all bound up.

And if you keep your stress posture long enough–shoulders hiked, jaw tight–your chest muscles will tighten and shorten, too.  In fact, maybe they already are short and tight just because of the day to day positions your work in.

That, in a nutshell, is an example of how stress can cause knots in your shoulders.

I don’t want to leave you all stressed-up like that so here’s a little meditation for you…

Imagine this:

The weather is perfect.  A soft breeze kisses your cheeks and the setting sun is warming your skin perfectly.

Birds are lining the rustling trees, making their sleepy noises, settling in for the night.  The moon is rising and the sky is becoming rosy and then indigo.

A million stars are twinkling overhead and the cooler breeze is lulling you to sleep.  You can fall asleep easily and rest well.

There is always enough…

Meditation is one way to relieve stress.  There are other easy, self-help ways to start to reduce your physical stress so you can more easily deal with day-to-day stresses at Knots In Your Back.

When your body has more muscular ‘balance’ (like a toddler does) it reduces body stress and pain and lessens mental stress.  It’s like peeling stressful layers off one at a time.

Toddlers:  No stress.  No muscle knots.  🙂

You can get rid of the stressful muscle knots in your shoulders!

Your smart body wants to be well.

 

 

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Shoulder Pain

Pain In Your Shoulder Joint–What Causes Pain In Your Shoulder?

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There are many causes of shoulder joint pain.  Of course, the most common cause is muscles.  If the muscles in your neck, chest, back or anywhere in the shoulder area are out-of-balance (that means tighter on one side than the other) that can cause pain in your shoulder.

When you look at pictures of a shoulder skeleton you will see that without muscles the whole thing would just fall apart.

Muscles hold skeletons together and they move bones.

Muscles cross over joints.  They attach one bone to another.  That’s how we are able to move.  A muscle moves the bone when we contract (shorten) the muscle.

The muscles of the shoulder area can become  out-of-balance and they can also develop trigger points.

Trigger points are areas of specialized tightness that are very irritable.  The irritable places can cause pain nearby or at a far distance.

Trigger points can make it hard to move your arm, shoulder or shoulder blade properly and so can muscles that are too strong on one side and too weak on the other (out-of-balance.)

Your shoulder has four muscles that are called the rotator cuff muscles.

  1. One is packed onto the lower outside 2/3’s of your shoulder blade (infraspinatis.)
  2. One is packed into the top of the shoulder blade (supraspinatis.)
  3. One is sandwiched between your shoulder blade and your ribs (subscapularis.)
  4. The fourth is on the outer side of your shoulder blade and attaches to your arm (terres.)

The rotator cuff muscles keep your arm bone in the socket and allow you to rotate your upper arm.

But those are not the only muscles that can cause shoulder joint pain.  Others can, too.

Sometimes Continue reading Pain In Your Shoulder Joint–What Causes Pain In Your Shoulder? →

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Causes of Back Pain

Medical Test Results for Back Pain in Rhomboid–What Do They Mean?

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What do medical test results  for back pain mean?  Does it all sound like Greek to you?  That’s because it’s a snapshot of that moment.

A diagnosis doesn’t necessarily mean ‘forever.’

Here’s an email I received from “Keith”:  Keith had an intense stabbing pain in his right rhomboid.  It even hurt to breathe.

Hi Kathryn,

I do regular workouts at gym and martial arts. For many years I often get a stiff neck or intense stabbing pain in my right scalpula or rhomboid (I am right-handed). It occurred once during heavy barbell shoulder press (overhead) and once when stretching out after a back workout when I held my right arm straight out and with my left hand pulled it towards the left side. It almost felt as if something gets torn in my back.

The pain is so intense it hurts when I breathe, too, and only reduces after muscle relaxants. I took an MRI and the diagnosis came out as ‘broad-based left paracentral protrusion of C5-C6 disc indenting the anterior subarachnoid space abutting the left C6 exiting nerve root. Mild ligamentum flavum prominence seen at this level indenting the posterior subarachnoid space’.

I cannot understand this and the doctors did not tell me what to do about it except ‘don’t work out hard!’.

Can you tell me specific exercises to perform and which ones to avoid? Your input will be very helpful.

Here’s my response (please remember:  I am not a doctor.)

Muscles can be torn and so can their attachments at bones.  If you cannot lift weights with perfect form you are lifting too much weight.

Back pain happens for a reason.  A medical test tells Continue reading Medical Test Results for Back Pain in Rhomboid–What Do They Mean? →

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Self Help

Ice Or Heat? Which Is Better For Muscle Pain Relief?

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Is it better to use heat or cold therapy when you have muscle pain?

Lots of people think heat feels better (me, too!) but most often cold therapy is the best way to get rid of your muscle pain.

However, even though I like heat, I also think ice feels great.  Sometimes it’s a bit uncomfortable but it has such a nice effect!

Note:  Only use cold therapy until you start to feel numbness.  Then it’s time for a break.

Twenty minutes on and off will work.

http://simplepainrelief.com/2010/10/11/a-wonderful-natural-pain-relief-remedy-ice-for-knots-in-your-back/

Natural pain relief is so nice; you don’t have to worry about nasty side effects or anything.

I read that ice may not actually not the very best treatment for inflammation because it slows the body’s healing response.  However, the slowed response was minimal.

(Inflammation is swelling in the tissues.)

Do you remember RICE?  (Rest, ice, compression & elevation.)  Apparently, according to research, the new plan is RCE when there is swelling.

But ice is the treatment of choice for nervy pain and when Continue reading Ice Or Heat? Which Is Better For Muscle Pain Relief? →

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Self Help, Upper Back Muscle Knots, Upper Back Pain

How To Strengthen Your Upper Back To Relieve Upper Back Muscle Pain

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It takes a lot of work to get rid of your upper back muscle pain.  But it’s well worth it!

The problem that causes your back pain is probably a weak back or poor posture (same thing!)  Strengthening your upper back can relief miserable muscle pain.

Here’s an email I received:

> Honestly Kathryn, I ‘ve been a little worse. I’ve been trying to
> strenghthen my upper back since I sit all day at a desk, and it seems like
> my shoulders KILL me the day after. I’ve only done it a couple of times; do
> you think that once they actually get used to working, it might help? My
> upper body is SO weak. I would love your advice on this.

Here’s my response:

If you do strengthening movements too often right off the bat your muscles will ache just as they will from any new exercise program that’s done too aggressively.  As they get stronger you will feel better.

It’s good to start slowly and thoughtfully.

Do your strengthening movement only a few times to start.  You can do more and more repetitions as your body adjusts.

You can also use a foam noodle to help relax the muscles in the front of your body and start strengthening your back.  Lay over the noodle (or towel rolled long-wise) so the noodle is behind your spine.  Let your shoulder blades “fall” to the floor.

Getting rid of your upper back pain is a two part process:

  1. Stretch the muscles in front of your body.
  2. Strengthen your back.

I also have a website called http://SimpleStrengthening.com

If you haven’t been there yet I have articles with simple movements that you can do in bed to strengthen your upper back and help correct your posture.

All of those movements–and more–are in the Simple Strengthening video that is included in the Knots In Your Back program I created just for people with upper back pain (like you.)

You have smart muscles.  They just need a bit of help from you right now to get rid of your upper back pain naturally.

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