Pain in the neck

I did something to my neck a number of weeks ago. It is really more shoulder to neck region. I'm sure I need to build muscle or something.

I chose the method of waiting until it goes away rather than go to the doctor or anything. After about 4+ weeks of semi not sleeping and waking up 3+ nights a week in pain I figured I should do some follow up.

I started with the chiropractor. I went once 1.5 weeks ago. It felt better briefly. Today I called my doctor. I have convinced myself that if I could just get 5 solid nights of sleep in a row I would feel better. I knew that my primary care MD would kindly offer a solution from big Pharm in the shape of a muscle relaxer. She's done it in the past when I had a never-ending spasm in a different part of my neck. Sadly she is on vacation so I was sent to see Dr. Kim.

Dr. Kim had quite a bit to say to me in regards to taking care of myself. Like why did I wait? I don't know, I just kept hoping it would go away. But now with the lack of sleep I'm feeling a little crazy so maybe sanity kept me away? I don't know, but let's just deal with it now that I am here.

He lectured me about the 12-24 pain killers I take a year when my bone spur is acting up. Really, 12-24 A YEAR? Freaking Rush Limbaugh took 30+ A DAY. A GD day.

I said to my girlfriend before the appointment that if my doctor replacement tells me to just take some Advil I will go insane. I want to sleep for more than 2 hours a night without changing my position 1000000 times because everything causes my neck/back to hurt. So Dr. Kim suggest I take 2 advil 4 times a day.

He mentioned how I can become addicted to muscle relaxers and that he is very hesitant to prescribe them. And that I should really suck it up and let the huge dose of Advil to do its work after about 5-7 days.

I begged him to just to let me have something so that I can get a few solid nights of sleep.
After much coaxing he finally gave me 5 days of 1/2 strength muscle relaxers. He made sure to tell me that they were half strength because, clearly I am an addict.

That was on Monday. I've slept great every night since then. I'm not strung out on pills and I haven't started stealing to support my habit. I've just slept really well, and as a result my neck is way less painful.