From a Trapped Nerve to Chronic Neck Pain: My Diagnosis Years Later
I still remember the first time it happened.
At the time, I thought I had just slept funny. A stiff neck, a bit of pain, something that would ease off in a few days if I rested and took some pain relief. But it wasn’t that simple, and looking back now, I can see that was the beginning of something much bigger.
I actually wrote about it at the time, back in 2014, when I was in the thick of it, trying to get through each day with pain I did not understand: Feeling Trapped with a Trapped Nerve.
Back then, all I knew was that I had a trapped nerve. That was the label I was given, and I held onto it because it made the situation feel temporary. A trapped nerve sounds like something that will pass. Something that will settle down and eventually go away.
But it didn’t.
I did not realise that what I was experiencing was nerve pain in my neck, something that can sometimes develop into chronic pain over time. At the time, I did not understand what nerve pain actually was.
The years in between
What followed was not one continuous experience, but a pattern.
The pain would ease, then return. Sometimes weeks apart, sometimes months. Each time it came back, it felt slightly different. Sometimes sharper, sometimes more widespread, sometimes lingering for longer than before.
At first, I brushed it off. Life was busy. I had children to care for, a home to run, a job, and like so many of us, I learned to push through discomfort rather than stop and question it.
But over time, those “episodes” became harder to ignore.
The pain was not just in my neck anymore. It would travel into my shoulders, down my arms, sometimes leaving a dull ache, other times a sharp, burning sensation that made even simple movements difficult. There were days where I would adjust how I sat, how I slept, how I moved, constantly trying to avoid triggering it.
I did not have the language for it then. I did not understand nerve pain, or what it meant when pain radiates, or why it can feel so intense compared to muscle pain.
I just knew something was not right.
I Thought Yoga Would Fix It
At the time, I also convinced myself, that felt reassuring: I was young, generally fit, and active, so it made sense to believe my body would recover if I just gave it the right support. I made a conscious decision to start practising yoga, hoping it would help with neck pain, improve my posture, and stop the pain from coming back. I leaned into it as something proactive I could do, something that gave me a sense of control.
And in some ways, it did help. Yoga for neck pain did give me moments of relief. It eased some of the tightness, helped strengthen the muscles around my neck and shoulders, and made my body feel a little more supported day to day. But it never stopped it. The pain still returned, and over time, it became more frequent, until it was no longer something that came and went, but something that stayed.
Looking back now, I can see that while yoga supported my body, it could not resolve what was happening underneath.
When it stopped going away
There is a shift that happens when something goes from occasional to constant.
At some point, I stopped having “good days” with my neck. The pain became part of my baseline. It was always there, to some degree, even if it fluctuated in intensity.
That is when it starts to affect everything.
Sleep becomes difficult because you cannot find a comfortable position, only that constant, dull pain. Sitting for too long aggravates it. Standing for too long aggravates it. Even resting does not bring relief in the way you expect it to.
It is not just physical either. It is draining in a way that is hard to explain. Constant pain wears you down mentally as much as it does physically.
Looking back now, this was the point where it had clearly moved beyond “just a trapped nerve.”
Finally getting answers
It was not until 2021 that I finally had an MRI scan of my spine.
By that point, I had been living with ongoing neck and back pain for years. I had learned to adapt, to manage, to get through each day as best as I could. But I still did not have a clear answer as to why it was happening.
The MRI showed foraminal narrowing in my cervical spine, as well as some degenerative changes and other issues.
Even hearing those words felt like a moment. Not because it fixed anything, but because it gave a name to what had been happening in my body for so long. It was also proof of the pain I had been living with.
Foraminal narrowing means that the spaces where the nerves pass through the spine have become smaller, or narrowed. When those nerves are compressed or irritated, it can cause the kind of pain I had been experiencing for years. The neck pain. The arm pain. The burning, radiating sensations.
Suddenly, it made sense.
When Surgery Was Not an Option
One of the hardest parts to process came after finally getting some answers.
I think a part of me assumed that once something showed up on a scan, there would be a clear plan to fix it. That there would be a next step that would make it better. But that was not the case.
I was told that surgery was not recommended for me.
The reasoning was explained carefully, but it still felt difficult to take in. Because of where the narrowing is in my cervical spine, surgery could potentially weaken other areas of my spine.. There is also a risk that it can create further issues above and below the area that is treated, meaning the narrowing could continue or shift to other levels over time.
When you hear that, it changes how you see things. It is not as simple as fixing one problem and moving on.
I was also told that because I still have relatively good movement in my neck, even though that movement is limited by pain, surgery would not necessarily improve things in the way you might hope. The risks could outweigh the benefits.
That was a difficult reality to sit with.
Because when you are living with constant pain, there is a part of you that wants a solution. Something definitive. Something that will take it away. And being told that the best option is to manage it, rather than fix it, takes time to come to terms with.
What I understand now
If I could go back to that first episode, I would still not have been able to change what was happening in my body. But I would have understood it differently.
I would have known that nerve pain is not the same as muscle pain. That it can be more intense, more persistent, and more unpredictable.
I would have known that when pain travels down your arm, there is often a reason for that. That it is not random.
I would have taken those early signs more seriously, not in a fearful way, but in a way that recognised my body was trying to tell me something.
At the time, I kept waiting for it to pass. I think many of us do that. We assume pain is temporary because we want it to be. And seven years later, it was confirmed that the pain would not simply pass.
The emotional side of it
There is also a quiet grief that comes with looking back. I have written before about the grief that comes with chronic illness.
Grief for the version of me who did not know what was coming. Grief for how long it took to get answers. And grief for how often I dismissed my own experience because I did not have a clear explanation.
But there is also validation.
Because now I know that what I was feeling was real. That there was a reason for it. That my body was not overreacting or exaggerating.
It was responding to something that had been there all along.
If you are at the beginning of this
If you are reading this and you are where I was back then, waking up with neck pain that does not feel quite right, pain that travels, pain that lingers longer than you expected, I want you to know this.
You are not overthinking it.
You know your body better than anyone else. And if something feels different, it is okay to pay attention to that.
It may still turn out to be something that settles. But if it doesn’t, you deserve to be listened to, to be taken seriously, and to have answers.
Looking back
That first “trapped nerve” never really left.
It just changed, evolved, and became something I would spend years trying to understand.
At the time, it felt like a bad week.
Now I can see it was the beginning of a much longer story.
About me
I am a married mother of four children. One of those children is our granddaughter, for whom we are legal guardians and kinship carers. I run a small business, and I love to write, which is how this blog came to be. I write about family life, kinship care, and my experiences living with chronic illness and disability, including ME CFS, spinal stenosis, TMJD, chronic pain, and fibromyalgia. I am also very aware that I am doing all of this in my mid-forties, which still surprises me some days.
You’re not alone here. You’re welcome to stay as long as you need.
FAQ
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Yes, it can. What starts as a trapped nerve does not always fully resolve, especially if there is an underlying issue in the spine. In my case, the pain came and went at first, but over time it became more frequent until it was constant.
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For me, it felt very different from a pulled muscle. It was sharp, intense, and it travelled. The pain would move from my neck into my shoulder and down my arm, sometimes burning, sometimes shooting. It was the kind of pain that is hard to ignore and does not ease easily.
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The nerves in your neck run down into your arms. When those nerves are compressed or irritated, the pain follows that pathway. That is why it does not stay localised and can feel like it is spreading.
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Yoga helped me manage my symptoms. It supported my posture, strengthened the muscles around my neck, and gave some relief. But it did not stop the pain from returning, because it did not address the underlying cause of the nerve compression.
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It means the spaces in your spine where the nerves pass through have become smaller. In the cervical spine, this can put pressure on the nerves, which can cause ongoing neck pain and pain that radiates into the shoulders and arms.
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I was told that surgery could potentially weaken other areas of my spine and lead to further issues above and below the affected area. Because I still have relatively good movement in my neck, even though it is painful, the risks of surgery were considered to outweigh the benefits.
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If your neck pain is severe, keeps coming back, or starts travelling into your arm, it is worth getting it checked. If something feels different or is not improving, you deserve to be listened to and taken seriously.
This post is based on my personal experience and is not medical advice. If you are experiencing similar symptoms, please speak to a healthcare professional.