Neck/upper back pain when driving

For me I had some knee pain in the beginning. I found that if I adjusted the seat so my feet were planted on the floor comfortably and not floating a bit the pain went away. Just like any new thing you put your body thru it will take some time to adjust.

 

Start with your set up. Your seat should be level or even tilted slightly forward, low enough for your feet to be firmly on the floor with no circulation cut off from your legs.

Your seat needs to be close enough to the clutch, brakes, and throttle you can easily press the clutch to the floor without your back moving away from the back of the seat. If you have inflatable lumbar support in your seat, then inflate it.

Next, the steering wheel should be tilted and brought toward you so you can hold 10 and 2 with your arms hanging and about a 90° bend at the elbows. NOW comes the important stuff.

Hold the steering wheel as if you are holding a sparrow with a broken wing. JUST firm enough to keep it from struggling and injuring itself more, BUT not so firm you risk compressing it's delicate rib cage and suffocating it.

NOW, hang your arms like limp noodles ALL the way up to the base of your skull. ANY time you sense ANY tension creeping in, wiggle your arms back and forth like suspension bridges in the wind.

ALWAYS steer by pulling DOWN. NEVER push up or sideways on the wheel.

Learning these key things not only helped get rid of my neck, hand, shoulder, and leg pains; it made me a much better driver. Lane control is near perfect now, even in a gusting hard broadside wind. I can drive all day in conditions like that and never ever have pain anymore.

 

Pain is your body's way of saying hey bub you aint treating me good. There is no one size fits all solution either. If this becomes a serious problem for you GO SEE A PROFESSIONAL healthcare giver!

 

I got your healthcare giver right here...

 

I wrote that tongue in cheek. I generally don't use the word aint in my writing. I also don't use such a silly phrase as healthcare giver. I was serious but also being stupid doing so. On a serious note though I spent almost 4 hours yesterday at the Hampton VAMC ER in the care of the nice and lovely Nurse Katelyn with painful back spasms. I seem to spend so much time there I should just change my address. Anyway back pain is not funny. You that are facebook friends should see my post today checking in from there.

 

Chiropractor.

 

Lie down on your back,put a tennis ball on the problem areas and work it around.Also yoga stretches and a good deep tissue massage

 

I steer a big truck a little differently which might be strange to some.

First the tidbits. In the days of old iron you had no power steering and you kept the thumbs and fingers OUT from inside that rim. It will absolutely go wild and hurt you real bad if it has a chance to. Today's trucks you can steer with a finger it seems compared to those oldies.

I am a little bit of a popeye and get cramping if I steer too long the way Lepton1 describes. I can do that a while. But it becomes a problem eventually for me specifically.

What I do is have the left hand upside down holding the wheel from below at about the 8 oclock. The right hand is resting on top of but not anywhere inside the wheel at about the 5. There is no force imposed where possible when the roadway allows the rig to find it's own path. (Grooves... more common out west)

If there is a fight with headwinds and storm fronts in Kansas or what have you. Then the left hand is on top about the 7 pulling down like you are riding a horse. Just enough to hold her as needed even if she bucks and shakes wanting out from the winds etc. I can do that all day long.

But that is specific to me, I don't do cell phones etc. None of that. The worse it might be is a smoke now and then and a bit of coffee or some other fluid etc. The right hand is loose enough to catch anything that goes flying. I don't know about you older ones but in my time sometimes hitting a bad bridge you might have something go flying above the doghouse or off the dash etc. And you can catch it right quick before it goes out the window, knocks you out or cuts a paper cut on you somewhere.

But no matter what, There is no tension beyond what is necessary to hold her. But really ready at any time to put in either very large inputs or to really hold her steady. Sometimes the 5th wheel fights me on the downgrade in the rain, and that is a pretty dangerous situation. But I did not run into that shake too much, usually on the really steep coal roads etc long ago.

 

Now I think we need to define where the numbers are on the face of a clock.

 

The back is incapable of hurting, so back pain is caused by stress and the brain. Maybe stressing about the new job?
Dr Sarno has a couple of books to help people out.
(I haven’t read his books yet)