This morning my wife woke with a kink in her neck., and asked me if I wouldn’t have a few minutes sometime today. Standing, she rotated her head to her left, then pointed at the left side of her neck where it meets her shoulder. “When I turn this way, it hurts here.”
I asked her to lie on the bed diagonally, with her head at one corner of the foot-end of the bed. I pulled up a chair to that corner, spread my knees and slid the chair right up to touching the corner of the bed. This is an excellent way to reach the neck, it brings the head within very close easy reach of your hands, perhaps even better than a massage table does.
Holding her head, I felt that it wanted to rotate to her right, so I helped it. For it to want to rotate right, the right-rotating muscles must be contracting more than the left-contracting muscles. The two most influential right-rotating muscles are the right OCI muscle and the right Splenius Capitis. In right rotation, I palpated the OCI with a crossing motion with one finger and then pressed it and waited. With my other hand I pressed into the Splenius. Getting into this position took about half of a minute, my hands just do this naturally now, I could do it in my sleep.
“That feels complicated,” she said, “like you’re doing a lot. But why are you working on my right side when I feel the pain on my left?”
“Well, my hands felt that your head wanted to rotate right. That told me that your right-rotating muscles are tighter.” In the midst of melting the muscle, I crossed it twice as I was speaking, to give her another way of sensing what we were talking about. “When this muscle contracts, it rotates your head to the Right. Do you see?”
“Yes.”
“So if this muscle is too tight, then it does not want to lengthen to its full length. For your head to rotate to the Left, this muscle must lengthen to its full length. But since it is too tight, it begins providing resistance when you try to turn your head to the left. Get it?”
“Yes. But shouldn’t I feel that resistance on the right?”
“You would if what you are feeling was muscle tension. But you feel more of a pinch. What’s happening is, the tight muscle on the right prevents the two parts of the two bones from sliding apart from each other on the right. Still, other larger muscles are still pulling. Since the larger muscles can’t separate those two bone parts, they become the immovable fulcrum and something else has to move. Instead of those two bones sliding apart, the joint has to compress and pinch. Depending on the joint, that pinch could be felt on the Right or the Left, you can’t always predict what is going to be pinched first.”
“So a nerve is being pinched?”
“It could be a nerve, or simply the two bones are pressed together on a surface that is not designed for contact, and the bones actually hurt.”
She pondered this while I slowly returned her head from Right rotation to neutral, since the Right-rotators were melting. Then I crossed her left Levator Scapula a few times (to provide sensation for her and to give me a good sense of the fibers) then I pressed into its thickest part and waited. It began melting.
“Now you’re working where I feel the pain.”
“Yes, first I worked where your subconscious brain told me was the muscle that was most tense, and now I am working where you consciously feel you need work. I’m showing your brain that I am listening to both versions, so you’ll be balanced.” After the Levator melted, I asked her to try to move her head.
“It’s a little better,” she said, and her hand went to the left levator again, telling me there was still pain there.
I felt her head again in neutral and again it wanted to rotate to the Right. So I melted the Right-rotators again, until the head wanted to return to neutral again. The head actually appears to pull itself back to neutral when the Right-rotators relax to the degree they are contracting equal to, or less than the Left-rotating muscles are contracting.
“How about now?”
She rotated her head left and right and said maybe she felt a little more relief. Her hand again went to her Left Levator. “I’m sure it will feel better in time, you’ve done enough.”
But I wanted to do one more thing. Again I rubbed, then melted her Left Levator Scapula at the shoulder. This time I also sidebent her neck to the Left which places the Levator in a shorter position. I found the upper fingers of the Levator and lightly pressed them against the TVPs of C1 through C3. I was thinking that the Levator probably gets cranky when three of its insertions are long and one is short, or vice versa. This would happen whenever the head is rotated for long periods, or when there is excess tension in one of the OCI muscles. I believe the muscles really have individual personalities, and they literally experience emotions like cranky, competitive, bullied, and fatalistic, and then when relieved of their stresses they feel grateful and cooperative. I felt her Levator melt again, and allowed her head to come out of Left sidebending back to neutral.
“Try it again,” I said.
“Wow, it’s way better. Thanks! What did you do?”
“You had a big muscle that was trying to guard the area. It had a good reason to guard when your bones were being pulled out of their natural balance. But even after the cause of the problem was reduced, the big muscle still was feeling it out to keep guarding. So I spent more time with it to call it back from duty.”
She saw that the rug in the room needed cleaning so she began moving furniture and rolling up the rug. I took this to mean she was back in balance.
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