A Pain In The Neck

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Wait til you hear what I've been dealing with for the past 24 hours. 

I awoke yesterday with some stiffness/pain in my neck.  You know how sometimes you sleep on your neck funny and it takes a few minutes for it to normalize after you wake up?  It was like that, only it didn't normalize, it got worse.  I hopped in the shower and every time I turned my head (which you do a lot when you are shampooing), I howled in pain.  I was so loud I woke Clyde up and he came running to the shower door to check on me.  What a sweetie...

I got out of the shower, and could not wrap my head in a towel.  It was about then I knew something was wrong and it was going to require treatment.  I called in to work and waited for Greenapple to open so I could try and get an appointment.  Meanwhile I winced in pain and iced my neck.  I also attempted to blow dry my hair, which was interesting.

A little background on me.  I've had migraines since college.  I know that I pretty much always have tons of tension in my neck and shoulders.  I've been on medications, been to chiropractors, been to regular doctors, been to physical therapy, and have kind of resigned to the fact that I'm probably always going to have them and just found ways to cope.  Exercise probably helps the most in keeping me destressed and loose.  This might be why this issue popped up, because my exercise level has dropped off some since the marathon, so I could give my body a break.

Anyway, here is the affected area:

Basically anytime I turned or tilted my head I had an incredibly painful neck spasm.  I swore a lot yesterday! 

Luckily, I got an appointment for treatment later in the morning and headed over, driving carefully as it hurt to move my head.  I saw my doc and described the issue.  He carefully massaged my neck and used some chiro tools on me.  He said it was likely to last a few days and sent me on my way to be rechecked later in the week.  Since I was halfway to work, I decided to go in for a while and get some things done.  For a while I was ok, but towards the end of the day the problem worsened and I was in a lot of pain.  I headed home and was pretty immobile for the rest of the evening, moving as little as possible to avoid the painful spasms.  Playing with Clyde was interesting.  Thank god he plays fetch and I can just throw a ball and he can bring it back to me.

Today I'm home because I don't want to deal with the pain I felt yesterday and be at the office.  My neck does feel better than yesterday today, but is still really sore and it still hurts to turn my head.  The spasms seem to have gone though, which is a huge relief!  I'm just going to take it easy and hopefully I'll continue to improve. 

Have you guys ever experienced anything like this?  I think I'm getting old!