Neck Pain and Tension Headache Treatment in Bromley
Neck pain and tension headaches usually travel together. The neck ache sits across the top of the shoulders and up into the base of the skull, often one side worse, and stiff when you turn to reverse the car. The headache that goes with it is a dull, pressing band — around the temples, behind the eyes, or spreading up the back of the head — rather than a throb, and it builds through the day.
This is the commonest thing we see at our Bromley clinic, and it is overwhelmingly screen-related: office workers, students, and anyone who has migrated to a laptop on a kitchen table. People usually book because of the headaches, and are surprised when pressing a spot in the neck reproduces exactly the headache they came in with.
How to tell if that is what you have
Tension-type headache has a recognisable shape, and it is not migraine’s.
- Dull, pressing pain on both sides of the head, often described as a band or a tight cap.
- Neck and upper shoulder stiffness that is worse by the end of the working day.
- Pressing certain spots in the neck or upper shoulder reproduces the headache you recognise.
- Not badly worsened by ordinary light, noise or moving about.
Migraine is different: more often one-sided and throbbing, with nausea, sensitivity to light or sound, and sometimes visual disturbance beforehand. Movement makes it worse and people want a dark room. Pain down the arm with pins and needles in the hand suggests a nerve in the neck rather than muscle.
What actually causes it
Your head weighs about as much as a bowling ball, and the muscles at the back of the neck hold it up all day. Held still in one position, especially with the head tipped forward, they work continuously at a low level without the rest that movement would give. They become tender, and tender neck and shoulder muscles refer pain into the head in well-mapped patterns.
The upper neck joints do something similar, referring into the back of the head. Stress raises resting muscle tone, poor sleep lowers your tolerance, and clenching the jaw adds another layer.
How we treat it at the clinic
Treatment starts with an assessment: how your neck moves, where the tender points are, whether pressing them reproduces your headache, and whether anything needs a doctor rather than us.
Deep tissue massage to the neck, upper back and the muscles around the shoulder blade is usually the mainstay, and most people feel a difference the same day. Medical acupuncture often helps where tender points are stubborn — fine needles into the muscle itself for anatomical reasons, the same approach commonly called dry needling — and the evidence for it in tension-type headache is encouraging, though not conclusive.
Where the pattern is driven by your working setup, posture analysis is where the lasting change comes from. Adjusting screen height, chair and arm support removes the load; treatment alone will not, if you return to the same desk each morning.
What you can do yourself
- Get the top of your screen to roughly eye level and your forearms supported. A laptop on a table with no separate keyboard is the worst common setup there is.
- Move every half hour, even briefly. Small, frequent neck and shoulder movement beats one long stretching session.
- Count your painkiller days. Regularly using them more than two or three days a week can eventually cause headaches rather than relieve them.
- Notice whether you clench your jaw or hold your shoulders towards your ears — both often ease by being noticed.
How long it takes
Most people we see in Bromley get useful relief within two or three sessions, and a recent episode often needs no more than that. Headaches usually drop in frequency before they drop in intensity, so keep a rough count rather than judging by how yesterday felt.
Where the neck has been sore for years, expect a longer course, and accept that the desk, sleep and stress side will decide how well relief holds. Some headaches do not come from the neck at all. If two or three sessions change nothing, that is useful information, and the next step is your GP.
When to see a doctor instead
Most headaches are harmless. A few are not, and need medical attention rather than a therapy appointment:
- A headache that comes on instantly and is the worst you have ever had — call 999.
- Headache with fever, neck stiffness, a rash or confusion.
- Any headache after a blow to the head, particularly with drowsiness or vomiting.
- A headache that is worse in the morning, or when lying down, coughing or straining.
- Facial drooping, weakness, slurred speech or sudden loss of vision — call 999.
- A new headache pattern starting after fifty, or progressive weakness or numbness in an arm or hand.
Scalp tenderness or jaw pain on chewing over the age of fifty also needs a same-day GP appointment.
Book neck pain and tension headache treatment in Bromley
The clinic is at Carlton Chambers, 5 Station Road, Bromley BR2 0EY. The way in is the red side gate to the right of the building. We are a three-minute walk from Shortlands station, and we see people from Beckenham, Shortlands, Hayes, West Wickham, Chislehurst, Petts Wood and Orpington.
Call 07896 257328 to check whether we can help, or book an appointment online. You will find our prices and full directions on our location page.
Written by Dharam Vyas, sports therapist and clinic director at SMSM Therapy, Bromley.