Pain In The Neck

For over a year now, I have had a chronic muscle spasm in my neck, on the left side. For about six months I couldn't turn my head to the left. It didn't just hurt to turn it that way; I physically could not do it without turning my body. During that time I was supposed to be learning to drive... hah! Driving without being able to look over your left shoulder, right.

I never injured my neck in any way. No sprains, strains, or pulled muscles. The muscles just started turning to stone for no discernible reason.

I went to a massage therapist for several sessions a few month ago, and while they helped slightly, the problem wasn't going away. Finally, a course of treatments from a chiropractor adjusted my neck so that I could move it properly again. My C4 vertebra had been pulled out of alignment by the spasm. I figured that with my neck back in alignment, I could expect the spasm to finally subside as long as I remembered to stretch and relax the muscles in question.

No such luck. The stiffness and pain have simply spread to accommodate the entire left side of my back as well. I can still turn my head properly, but every day I am at a near-constant low level of pain. Any movement which pulls on the area reminds me of this persistent, infuriating problem. Some days it flares up and just plain hurts, regardless of what I'm doing. That's when I start getting angry.

If I were forty years old, it would be a different story. However, I am not forty, or even thirty. I am eighteen years old. By all accounts, I should feel invincible and vigorous.

I don't feel invincible. I don't even feel healthy. I feel like a cripple and a weakling. Stretching, heat pads, fancy memory foam neck pillows--at the end of the day it's ibuprofen that lets me get to sleep when it's bad.

What is this bullshit? I'm not old, or injured, or deformed. I just hurt all the damn time. I can't move without being reminded that there's something wrong with me that I can't fix, and it's eating me up. It's pain with no gain, pain that's just there to remind me that I'm frail and there's nothing I can do about it.