Can stress cause your neck and back to hurt?

My identical twin was recently diagnosed with Breast Cancer and I've been under a lot of stress and things are pretty tense. My neck and then between the shoulder blades hurts so badly. Can this just be from the stress? Or am I imagining a lot of problems because my sister is ill? I am 46 years old... Thank You

Yes your back and neck pain is probably due to stress. One of the side effects of stress is to tense your muscles up and that can make them hurt especially when you never relax them. Stress also makes you feel tired causing you to slouch, which also makes your neck and back hurt. Try doing some stretching exercises to help relax your muscles. Or you could get a deep tissue massage which will not only help your pain, but will also reduce your stress.

Yes stress can especially cause neck pain. This is where the saying "it's a pain in the neck" when someone is stressed or frustrated originated from.

Under severe stress the body undergoes many biochemical changes and one of those changes is to the muscles, especially the back of the neck. The main reasons for this is that the body's reserves run low (used up while adjusting and adapting to stress - production of steroids) and supplementing these would help a lot.

Try taking a B complex vitamin, around 2000mg of vitamin C daily and possibly a B5 supplement (100mg x2 daily) also known as pantothenic acid or pantothenate. These are needed for the body to be able to deal with the stress. Hope this helps.

As a licensed massage therapist who specializes in deep tissue and trigger point work, my answer for you is YES! Stress can cause one to (unconsciously) hold muscles in a contracted state. In this case, trigger points will develop that can refer pain throughout the body. Active trigger points can actually become large enough that we feel them as knots in the muscle.

My suggestion for you is to practice some deep breathing exercises, get a good deep tissue massage, and take a good supplement designed to counteract the effects of stress on the body.

Yes. Stress can cause physical pain and disease--heart disease and stroke are highly linked to stress.

Yes, I suffer from lower back pain when I'm stressed. This can definitely be from stress. Try to lower your stress level with these techniques and see if it helps: http://stress-help-guide.com/learning-ho...

Your right, stress may cause thees kinds of pain.
I recommend you seeing a chiropractor, it worked for me !