You wake up in the morning with a pain on one side of your neck. Your neck is stiff and is bending away from the source of the pain. Attempting to straighten your neck causes even more pain. You may experience some swelling or inflammation. You may be suffering from acute wry neck!

The neck has muscles running down either side of it (the sternocleidomastiod or SCM). These connect up to the skull and down to the collar bone and breast bone. They help with the very varied and flexible movements the neck has to make and the management of the many facet joints which allow the neck to do this.

When the muscles on one side of the neck go into spasm, they cause a sharp pain and the muscles on the other side react as a reflex to pull the neck away. The result is that the head is tilted over and the neck is awry. This condition untreated can last for days or weeks. The pain may radiate down to the lower neck and shoulder area.

The spasm may be a symptom of a small injury or problem in the neck, although it is not always possible to say what that might be. Some deterioration diseases may affect the bones in the neck and place the muscles under stress. However, the cause is often just sleeping in strange position and keeping the muscles under stress all night.

The condition can also arise as a result of direct impact or injury but this is much less common. It is more commonly seen in people from 12 to 30 and in both sexes.

Very young children can also show similar symptoms but these are rare and when seen are usually caused by a congenital problem, producing the same results. Anyone experiencing these types of symptoms should seek the advice of an Orthopedic doctor immediately.