My neck (and the rest of my body) are really sore, any advice?

Don’t heat!

Ice it for a few days. (Then you can do heat followed immediately by ice.) Motrin’s good. Cold medicines usually have Tylenol in them, so don’t take any Tylenol. Call your doctor to make sure there’s no reason for you not to, but most people can take 600–800mg of Motrin without a problem.

Also, I recommend finding a chiropractor, and getting some BioFreeze.

@taciturnu: Why no heat? It makes it feel so much better! I don’t have any ice but I have some frozen bagged veggies that I could use. The motrin is working, mom said to take 800mgs but 600 seems to be working okay (I’ve mixed a few different meds in the past 2 days, I don’t want to kill my liver). Chiropractor is a great idea, I’m going to look into that tomorrow. Thank you!

Heat will increase bloodflow (and inflammation) at this point. If you really must, then heat and ice immediately.

I love my chiropractor. He’s been a saving grace more than once. I hope you’re feeling better soon! Or, at least that the fun outweights the discomfort. :)

PS Try a neti pot for your cold. I’d take any kind of sickness over a cold, and the neti pot makes it much more tolerable… And it’s drug free.

Trust me. I know the pain you have.

Aleve!

Ibuprofen 600 mg (always take with a glass of water, and a little food, even a cracker) every 4 to 6 hours. Your soreness should go away in 72 hours, unless God forbid you have actually pulled or pinched something, but I doubt you have. I would not do ice, because ice stiffens muscles, and right now you are stiff, not sprained or pulled.

For next time, remember that stretching immediately AFTER doing any sort of athletics helps move the lactic acid out of the muscle, and avoid soreness. Too late now though, don’t try it now.

Hi Samantha.
I have only just joined this forum less than 10 minutes ago and yours was the first problem I came upon.In fact I joined just so that I could answer your plea.
I realy cannot recomend the simple remedy of having a few nice hot baths with some epsom salts highly enough.The pure form can be bought realy cheaply in any chemist(realy cheap) or you probably already have epsom salts in the form of bath salts.The comercial form just has colouring and diferent fragrances added.
Dont just take my word for this.If you google epsom salt uses, you will discover that as well as being exactly what you need to for your aching body it has numerous other benefits a well.I speak from experiance as I discovered this age old remedy 8 years ago when I realy was at my wits end with a ruptured disc in my back.Please try this before you even think of going near a chiropractor.
I hope you google it
Best wishes and a happy new year to you.

ferretlover.

@JLeslie: Thanks! I didn’t pull or sprain anything… it’s just soreness. I am assuming what I feel in my neck is similar to whiplash (I ate shit REAL bad twice yesterday). The rest of my body isn’t bad, just bruised – I thought the soreness was going to be a lot worse. I have been stretching tons and it feels great.

@ferretlover: Thank you for that advice. I am too lazy and feeling too yucky to go out and get some epsom salt but I definitely thought of that first thing today. Maybe I’ll grab some tomorrow. :) Welcome to fluther!

@Samantha_Rae Give it 72 hours and see how you are doing. Sleep and rest with a small rolled towel under your neck to support it, it should feel good. If that is not comfortable, be sure your shoulders are not on your pillow, only your neck and head. Sometimes whiplash is lasting, so hopefully this will just be a sucky few days, like waking with a crick in your neck, and you will be like new soon. :)

@ferretlover Welcome to fluther!

FYI, you can use ice the first 24 hours for whiplash, I had thought you were just sore from taxing the muscle. But, it seems to me you might be past 24 hours anyway, so I would go with what feels good.

I like heat. This may be politically incorrect but cold makes even my eyelashes ache. I like heat.

Fill a sock with rice, tie off the end, and microwave it for 2 minutes. It makes a great heating pad. If it’s too hot for you, place a wet cloth between it and your skin.

I would use a wet warm towel right out of the microwave.Wet the towel and heat it in the microwave for 2 to 2and a half minutes.Very carefully take it out of the microwave wrap it around your neck and go lay down.

My advice is go take some medicine, get your favorite movie on and eat a bowl of popcorn and you’ll feel better.

Two Aleve.

Take a hot shower and rub all the spots that are sore. My EX told me to do that when was sore.