Sorry but massage, pt, stretching exercises, acupuncture, etc, won't help you. Your neck muscles, in the radiation field, have fried by the radiation and will never recover. Instead of being stretchy and elastic, like a rubber band, they are now fibrous. An average persons head weighs about the same as a bowling ball and that is a lot of weight for the remaining functional muscles to hold up. Typically this won't show up until as long as 2 years post Tx. It can be exacerbated by getting your head in weird positions like when you're painting or working on the car, etc. My RO warned me prior to RT that some "texturizing" would occur post Tx. I really didn't understand what that meant until post Tx.

I have a script for Valium and codeine (when the pain is really bad) and take these drugs as I need them. Sometimes I can go for a week or 2 without an issue or medication. It makes it pretty manageable.