Quick advice on dealing with a stiff neck?

You guys ever sleep funny and wake up with a stiff and sore neck?

Yeah, I totally can't turn my head to the left, lean it to the left, lean it back with any tilt to the left or generally do anything with my head on that side of the body other than keep my head tilted away from it. Any attempt to do something causes horrific shooting pain up the big... tendon? muscle? whatever the ropey-feeling thing that goes from the top of your neck into the back of your skull.

Ice numbs it but only for the immediate period that ice is on it. Heat does nothing. Advil and Tylenol do nothing. I would really like to sleep it off, but I can't keep my head still enough to lay down without the pain causing me to sit straight back up again.

I can't even hold my stupid head up straight. I spent all day at the office looking like an LOLcat needing a caption. I have now progressed to nearly being able to get my chin to touch my chest and, if I move exceedingly slowly, getting my chin turned enough so that I can see my left shoulder out of the corner of my eye, but that's it.

Any tips, short of performing self surgery to cut out the damn area that hurts, on either making the pain stop or laying down without my head trying to snap itself off my body would be much, much appreciated.

 

Aleve. Trust me, I have arthritis in my neck I wake up with that pain almost every morning. Two Aleve and it's loose in an hour.
Advil and tylenol are not antiinflammatory. Aleve is.

A little IcyHot helps, too

 

I got something going with my leg. I've been to a masseuse twice and it provides only temporary relief. It's a sciatica type thing. From what I've read it will eventually go away, but for now it's a lot stretching, lying on my back and going to the gym and hitting the treadmill and elliptical.
Try heat and ice, Smash on different sides. It might confuse the muscle enough to relax.

 

Whatever you do, don't listen to Chef.

 

But if he cuts off a toe, the pain there will be so bad, he'll forget about the stiff neck.

 

Sleep it off. It'll go away eventually.

 

spnited - Sadly, I don't have any Aleve. I will definitely pick some up tomorrow in case this happens again. That said, I thought advil was an NSAID?

(How I long for some predinose right about now).

Dan - I will try it. The heat didn't seem to do anything by itself, but perhaps confusing the hell out of it might.

buck and BYH - both solid piece of advice. I don't have enough alcohol for either, sadly.

Gene - I would sleep if I could lay down. That's the most immediate problem. If ice didn't melt, I'd be tempted to like... tape an ice pack to my neck to numb it before laying down.

 

Not to sound like a worrier, but if this is sudden onset of neck pain and you can't move your chin toward your chest, you might consider meningitis. If you get migraine-like symptoms like sensitivity to light/sound, nausea or dizziness/confusion, go get checked out.

 

My dad was on me about that all day, and moving my chin towards my chest is about the only direction I've been able to stretch out (thought it still grabs hard when I get close). No fever, no blotchy rash, no migraine fun. Just a good, old fashioned pain the neck.

 

This happened to me in high school a couple of times. It may get better in a coupe of days. If not, I'd say get it checked out by a doctor.