Neck and Shoulder Pain That Won’t Go Away? Acupuncture May Help

You wake up and the first thing you feel is the weight—dull, dragging pain at the base of your neck. By midday, your shoulders feel like concrete. You try stretching, heat packs, even over-the-counter meds. Nothing lasts. And deep down, the worst part isn’t just the discomfort. It’s the creeping thought: “Is this just how my body feels now?”

You’re not alone. Chronic neck and shoulder pain is one of the most common complaints among adults, especially those who spend hours working at a desk, driving long distances, or recovering from past injuries. But understanding why the pain won’t go away is often the first step toward changing it.

What’s Causing the Pain?

Neck and shoulder pain isn’t one thing. It can be a combination of issues:

• Postural strain from forward head position or slouched sitting.

• Cervical disc degeneration, putting pressure on nerves.

• Trigger points in the trapezius or levator scapulae.

• Rotator cuff tension, causing referred pain into the neck.

• Emotional stress, which physically manifests as muscle tension.

In many cases, the origin isn’t in a single spot—it’s how your body is compensating over time, often silently, until the pain becomes constant.

What Conventional Medicine Offers

If you go to a conventional provider, you’ll likely receive:

• Anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)

• Muscle relaxants

• Physical therapy

• Corticosteroid injections

• Occasionally, imaging and surgery

These can be helpful. But they also come with limitations and risks:

• Long-term NSAID use increases risks of ulcers, high blood pressure, and kidney strain.

• Steroid injections can weaken tissue over time.

• Physical therapy may require weeks before changes are felt.

• Insurance coverage, scheduling delays, and co-pays often add logistical stress to physical pain.

Sometimes, patients find themselves rotating through treatments without clarity, unsure if the problem is muscular, structural, or even emotional. The pain persists, but no one can quite explain why.

So What About Acupuncture?

What if your body could talk back on day one?

In acupuncture, we expect immediate feedback. After the first treatment, one of three things should happen:

1. Pain is significantly reduced or gone — a sign we’ve correctly identified the root pattern.

2. No change at all — this suggests something important:

   • The diagnosis may be inaccurate or incomplete.

   • The patient may have been on long-term corticosteroids, which can blunt the inflammatory response and pain perception.

   • Or the immune system may be severely compromised, making it harder for the body to initiate change.

3. Atypical or mixed response — which still offers valuable diagnostic information for the next step.

In other words: if nothing changes after a properly administered first treatment, that itself is diagnostic information.

Clinical studies support acupuncture’s effect on chronic neck and shoulder pain. A 2020 meta-analysis published in Pain Medicine found that acupuncture outperformed both sham and standard care in reducing chronic neck pain and improving function (Liang et al., 2020). Imaging studies even show that acupuncture modulates brain regions involved in pain perception (Hui et al., 2005).

More importantly, patients often say the same thing:

“It was the first time I felt like something was changing.”

Acupuncture isn’t just about needles. It’s about getting a real-time answer from your body.

What About Herbal Support?

When pain becomes chronic, the body’s regulatory systems—what Eastern medicine calls qi and blood dynamics—often lose balance. Herbal medicine can support tissue recovery, improve circulation, and reduce inflammation at a systemic level. Formulas including Yan Hu Suo (Corydalis), Dang Gui (Angelica sinensis), and Shu Di Huang (Rehmannia) have demonstrated analgesic and anti-inflammatory properties in clinical studies.

Importantly, herbal treatments:

• Do not create pharmacologic dependency like some conventional medications.

• Can be used long-term to support immune resilience and overall constitutional health in maintenance settings.

• But in treatment-focused applications, they’re typically not needed indefinitely:
  Once the underlying imbalance is corrected, the therapeutic effect is sustained, or declines gradually—unlike drugs that must be continuously taken to suppress symptoms.

This means that once healing begins, patients often stop herbal formulas without relapse, which aligns with the goal: correction, not maintenance of dysfunction.

References

• Liang Z, Zhu X, Yang X, et al. (2020). Acupuncture for Chronic Neck Pain: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Pain Medicine, 21(7): 1410–1421.

• Hui KK, Napadow V, Liu J, et al. (2005). Monitoring Acupuncture Effects on Human Brain Using fMRI. Journal of Visualized Experiments, (10), e139.

• Park J, White A, Ernst E. (2014). Efficacy of Acupuncture for Shoulder Pain: A Systematic Review. British Journal of General Practice, 64(620): e619–e626.