Joint
Restricted upper neck
The top two segments carry most of your head's rotation. When they stiffen, everything below compensates — and complains.
Great Totham · Maldon · Essex CM9 8DG
Call 01621 731671
ELARIS CHIROPRACTIC& WELLBEING CENTRE
Neck & shoulder pain · Great Totham, near Maldon & Tiptree
Neck and shoulder pain, treated where it comes from.
Neck pain rarely stays in the neck. It shows up as a tight shoulder, an ache between the blades, an arm that tingles, a head that feels heavy by the afternoon — which is why treating only the sore spot tends to buy a few days of relief and no more.
We assess the whole chain: the upper neck joints, the shoulder itself, and the nerves that pass between them. Then you get a clear explanation of which of those is actually driving your symptoms.
What we commonly see
- Stiffness turning your head to reverse the car
- Ache across the shoulders that builds through the day
- Pain or tingling down the arm, into the hand
- A shoulder losing range, painful at night — frozen shoulder
- Waking with a locked neck for no obvious reason
Neck pain after a fall or collision, or with dizziness, visual changes or difficulty swallowing, should be assessed medically first.
Why it happens
Four things behind a painful neck.
The neck carries the weight of your head on seven small joints, all day, in whatever position your work puts it. Most of what we see follows from that.
Nerve
Irritated nerve root
Referred pain, tingling or weakness into the shoulder, arm or hand, from irritation where the nerve leaves the neck.
Shoulder
Frozen shoulder
Progressive loss of range with night pain. Slow by nature, and better managed early than waited out.
Load
Sustained desk posture
Hours of static forward head position. The tissue can be settled, but not while the load stays unchanged.
How we treat it
The Elaris Method™, applied to the neck.
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01
Assess
Which segments have lost movement, whether a nerve is involved, and how much of it is the shoulder rather than the neck.
-
02
Adjust
Restoring movement with technique matched to how irritable your neck is — firm or gentle, decided at the assessment.
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03
Reset
Settling the protective guarding that keeps the shoulders raised and the jaw and neck muscles switched on.
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04
Sustain
Deep neck and shoulder-blade strength, plus practical changes to your desk and screen height.
In their words
★★★★★
“Had never used a chiropractor before so wasn’t sure what to expect. My experience with Elaris has been excellent and they have really helped to eradicate the neck and shoulder pain I was experiencing.”
★★★★★
“I can highly recommend Jo and Stephen. At 72 with osteoporosis, neck, shoulder and lower back pain I didn’t expect too much — can’t believe how much better I am now and more flexible. Thank you for listening and explaining everything.”
Reviews left by patients on Google. Read all fourteen. Individual results vary.
Questions
Neck pain, answered.
Is neck treatment safe?+
Neck care is only given after a full examination that screens for the small number of situations where it is not appropriate, and technique is matched to the patient. Where a gentler approach is right — with osteoporosis, or a very irritable neck — that is what we use.
Why does it affect my shoulder and arm?+
The nerves supplying the shoulder and arm leave the spine through the neck, so irritation there is often felt further down. Part of the assessment is establishing whether the problem is the neck, the shoulder, or both.
Can you help frozen shoulder?+
Yes — and we are honest about timescales, because frozen shoulder is slow by nature. Graded joint work to keep and recover range, alongside a home loading plan, with the neck assessed too since the two commonly travel together.
My job keeps me at a desk. Will it just come back?+
Not if the loading is addressed as well as the tissue. Treatment settles the current episode; the changes we agree to how you sit, work and move are what stop it returning in three months.
A neck that has been stiff for years is not just how you are built.
Book your appointment