Neck Pain & Stiffness

Pain, stiffness, or restricted movement in the neck, most often mechanical in origin — driven by posture, prolonged screen time, muscle tension, and minor joint or disc irritation. The vast majority resolves within weeks without any imaging or intervention, and staying active is the single best-supported treatment.

Evidence synthesis: Exercise therapy and manual therapy combined have the strongest evidence for mechanical neck pain, outperforming passive treatments. Imaging studies show that disc degeneration and bulges are common in pain-free people, making routine MRI more misleading than helpful. Curcumin has randomised trial support for osteoarthritis pain (knee primarily) with effect sizes comparable to low-dose NSAIDs, but no trials target neck pain specifically — its role here is extrapolated. Magnesium is popular for muscle tension but lacks direct neck-pain trials. The critical clinical task is filtering the rare serious causes: trauma, neurological deficits, infection, and malignancy, which present with red flags rather than ordinary stiffness.