Neck condition
Down the back of your neck runs a chain of small paired joints — the facet joints — steering every nod and turn. When arthritis roughens them, they object to precisely the movements they steer: looking up, turning to reverse the car, the long tilt of a laundry pole or a ceiling job. Cervical facet joint arthritis is one of the most common — and most underdiagnosed — sources of stubborn neck pain, partly because it hides from MRI. The good news: it can be proven, and proven pain can be treated.
Tap any that apply to you — this is guidance, not a diagnosis, but it tells you how quickly to act.
One or more warning signs deserve prompt attention. These features point beyond simple joint wear — toward nerve involvement, inflammatory arthritis or other causes that deserve proper, prompt assessment rather than watchful waiting.
Good news — nothing urgent on that list. Movement-patterned pain without nerve signs fits irritable facet joints — uncomfortable, persistent, and very treatable. An assessment reads the pattern properly and starts the plan.
Each facet joint is a true joint — cartilage surfaces, a capsule rich in nerve endings — and it carries load every time the head tips back or turns. Wear it enough, and the joint becomes an irritable, well-innervated complainer. What does the wearing:
The key differential: facet pain refers an ache — skull base, top of the shoulder blade — but doesn’t send tingling down the arm. When electricity enters the picture, a nerve is involved, and that’s a different page. More: cervical radiculopathy →
The management theme is warm it up, don’t wall it off. Facet joints love movement in the middle of their range and resent long spells at the end of it — so keep the daily gentle turns and tilts, and break up the postures that pin the head back. Warmth before activity and on stiff mornings; simple pain relief from your pharmacist through flares so movement continues; and one detail that surprises people: a screen positioned too high is the facet joint’s enemy — eye level means eye level, not chin-up level. Pace the extension-heavy tasks — ceilings, high shelves, laundry poles — into shorter sessions with resets between, and most flares stay short and survivable.
Facet trouble announces itself in patterns — tap the one that fits yours:
The classic, manageable pattern. Activity-triggered flares respond well to the day-to-day plan: warm-ups, pacing the extension-heavy tasks, strength work between flares. Worth an assessment to confirm the pattern and set a proper flare plan — then most people run this well themselves.
A joint that’s stopped taking days off deserves naming. A steady daily ache means the self-management plan has been outgrown — time for a proper assessment, guided physiotherapy, and a conversation about proving the source if good conservative care doesn’t shift it. Persistent isn’t the same as untreatable.
The picture is changing — have it re-read promptly. Pain spreading beyond its usual zones, or tingling and weakness reaching the arm, means the story may no longer be the facet joint alone. That’s a re-assessment, not a wait-and-see, and same-day appointments are usually available.
Treatment is a ladder with an unusual honest middle: prove the source before treating it precisely.
Tap each card to reveal the truth:
Down the back of your neck runs a chain of small paired joints — the facet joints — that steer every nod and turn your head makes. Cervical facet joint arthritis is wear and inflammation in those joints: the cartilage roughens, the joint becomes irritable, and it starts objecting to the movements it steers — especially looking up and turning. It’s one face of the broader wear called cervical spondylosis, and one of the most common sources of persistent neck pain.
The best cervical facet joint arthritis treatment runs in two phases. First, the foundation: movement, targeted strengthening and ergonomic changes that let worn joints work in comfort — this alone manages most people well. Second, for pain that persists: prove the source with a precisely placed diagnostic injection, and if the joint is confirmed, radiofrequency treatment can quieten its pain supply for months to years. Surgery is almost never part of the answer for facet arthritis alone.
Because those are the movements that compress the facet joints. Tipping the head back and turning it — exactly what reversing demands — loads the small joints at the back of the neck more than any other everyday movement. Pain with that specific pattern, often with a referred ache at the skull base or the top of the shoulder blade, is the facet joint’s signature.
Often unhelpfully — and this surprises people. Scans show facet wear in painful and pain-free necks alike, so an MRI can neither confirm nor dismiss a facet joint as your pain source; a “normal” or “age-appropriate” scan certainly doesn’t mean the pain isn’t real. When it matters, the proof comes from a diagnostic block: numb the joint’s tiny nerve supply, and if the pain switches off, the source is found.
Radiofrequency treatment uses precisely delivered heat to quieten the tiny nerve branches that carry pain from a facet joint — nerves that do nothing else you’d miss. It’s offered only after a diagnostic block has proven the joint is the source, typically brings months to years of relief, and can be repeated if the nerves regrow. For proven facet pain that has outlasted good conservative care, it’s the evidence-backed next step.
Same-day appointments are usually available. Call or book online — our team will take it from there.
