The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › Member’s Meeting Place › Member Chit Chat › Servical spondylosis
The Hot Yoga Doctor – Free Bikram and Hot Yoga Resources › Hot Yoga Doctor Forum › Member’s Meeting Place › Member Chit Chat › Servical spondylosis
-
AuthorPosts
-
Hello Everyone,
I have a question about Servical spondylosis. What poses should be avoided for people with this? Currently I’m doing a yoga teacher training course and our teacher said the first thing we have to take care of people with neck problem is that we should tell them not to tilt their necks downwards.
I’m not satisfied very much with his explaination as it could be that people with neck problem might have not ease in tilting their neck back and easier to tilt it downwards.
Looking forward to your response.
Naheed
Hello Naheed
I agree with you. I am not ever satisfied with a blanket statement to cover all cases. Did your teacher say that all people with neck problems should not tilt their head forward (as in a chin tucking) or did this person quote particular conditions that affect the neck? You mention cervical spondylosis. Did this come up at training specifically?
The issue for me is not whether the person has greater ease in one direction or the other. For me it concerns many other areas. For example: what is the underlying cause or condition, the severity of the problem, what is the person doing currently to cope with this condition, what treatment have they had, have they had any fusions, what x ray evidence have they got, is it muscular, what exercise history have they got, what is their profession and so on.
More conditions of the neck will respond to increasing the range of movement around the neck than those that require you to avoid particular movements.
You are right to be curious about this person’s statement. Maybe you can check again with this person and give them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps seek some clarification about whether they meant all neck problems or specific ones.
As for specific poses to avoid for cervical spondylosis I would need to know a lot more about this person’s condition, experience, treatment etc. There are many grades of this condition. Some people need to move and on the other end of the spectrum someone may be a candidate for surgery.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Thank you so much Gabriellie!
Your answer has opened many horizons to question more about neck conditions. As for Servical spondylosis, there hasn’t come any person in the situation as such but the yoga teacher trainer is most of the time speaking about servical spondylosis in particular. Talking of neck problems in general,he says that when we are treating people with neck problems the first thing we have to care about is that not to let them tilt their necks downwards i.e. chin tucking down on the chest. I can share one of the thing that had happened in the class, we had one to one practice session and one of the students had pain in her back of her. She told that she had been doing freestyle swimming classes and the pain was due to those lessons. My sister was doing one to one session with that lady and after they had done, the teacher asked my sister a question about what first thing she did when she came to know of her neck pain. My sister told him that she made her do cobra pose and easy forward bend. And then he said the first thing she should have done was to tell her not tilt her neck downwards. Both my sister and I were not satisfied with that as we felt there should have been some proper resoning to that.
Today is my class so I’m going to put your question up right away to him as if it is for all neck conditions that one should not titlt the neck forwards.
We live miles away but your answers have always guided me in the rightest way:-) Thank you for that!
Best wishes,
Naheed
I was diagnosed with cervical spondylosis in the neck area about 5 years ago. It was very bad when it happened initially…could barely move. Went to a chiro and had xrays and MRI which showed the deterioration of #4/5/6 I think? vertebrae. I had a few chiro visits, and after a month or so it went away. 2.5 years later I started Bikram (which is about 2.5 ago now). The condition has just recently returned, not nearly as severe, but I just had xrays and MRI and it is the same condition. The orthopod told me he does not condone yoga in any form. Anyway….if Bikram yoga caused this (incurable) condition to resurface, I think it would have happened before this. Besides I have no intention of stopping my Bikram practice unless I absolutely have to. SO….in response, my neck only “hurts” when I tilt it BACKWARD. Forward seems to relieve it (opening up the vertebrae in the neck). My recent favorite poses, backward bends and camel, I can’t let my head tilt back all the way. It also “hurts” during any poses with neck tilting back (i.e. cobra, and other spinal series poses). Very upsetting! I am taking a 5 day dose of steroids, trying to wear a neck brace to give my neck a rest, hoping it will go away…and when it does I will be doing all the poses again (I hope) the way I was a few months ago! ANY ADVICE ON MY DESCRIPTION OF THIS ISSUE, GABRIELLE? I would appreciate any input u might have! Namaste!
Hi Diane
Firstly I want to acknowledge your love of your yoga and your passion to keep it going and also your intention to do the right thing and heal your body with integrity!
I don’t know that you can say that your yoga or anything in particular has caused a resurfacing of your condition. It was there to begin with. And your problem is one of physical degeneration and damage in your vertebrae.
Who knows what is going on? I have only your words so I can only lend an opinion and comment on your words. Your orthopod and you and people who are in your vicinity with radiographs and MRIs would have a far better picture (no pun intended, but it works!) than I do.
The fact that you have some bony or hard tissue damage is evident in your pain in backbends (even the steroids and the brace). If you need to get a second opinion then go ahead and do that.
Your orthopod is not recommending yoga for his reasons. I would think some mobilization of the body in many conditions is the way to go. There are probably extremes of movement in your condition that may even seem normal to others, that should be avoided. Maybe this is Camel and Rabbit. I need to know more before I would be willing to go down that road with you.
Part of the problem is that you want so much to do the yoga because it makes you feel so good. I would worry and do further investigations as to how your neck actually responds to certain movements.
For example it is starting to be widely acknowledged that the pain one can get in the spine may be not just because of nerve damage but also the presence of chemicals which are the response to the inflammation. You really have to find out what’s going on in order to make your own assessment.
I remember someone posted well over a year ago about having had x rays taken while in his back bend to see whether there was bony impingement. I don’t know what your orthopod would be willing to do for you.
Other questions to ask yourself: What can you do to encourage any kind of repair in your body? Could you do something dietary? Take high potency supplementation (vitamins and minerals) in high doses?
I would love to hear your response
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂Hi! I’m new to this forum, but I too have cervical spondylosis (discovered 2 years ago when I took a bad fall on my snowboard and was paralyzed from the neck down for about 3 minutes). MRIs showed severe spondylosis and degeneration of the cervical disks. After healing from the snowboard accident, which took several weeks, I did not have many problems with pain until I resumed doing Bikram yoga (after a 3 year layoff). Now, after doing about 10 classes in my first 2 weeks, my neck pain if quite bad and I feel as if the yoga is damaging my neck instead of helping to heal it. I am careful to not let my neck go back very far in pranayama or back bends, but I have been tucking my chin to knee and I believe that may be what is causing the issues. My question is, can I do Bikram without doing a lot of neck movement, back or tucked? Will I still be able to benefit from the poses? I LOVE this yoga and definitely do not want to give it up, but it’s not worth damaging my vertebrae any further. Are there modifications I can do to prevent further damage/pain and still continue? Any insight or suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you!
Hi Anne
I can’t get to your post to the extent I would like right at this moment. So it would be best at this moment to stop doing any movements that elicit pain. I have to ask you quite a number of questions and send you to different threads in the forum.
In the meantime, go and poke around the forum. And if you have specific information about where and when and how things happen that will get us started.
Namaste
Gabrielle 🙂 -
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.