My mother is in excrutiating pain when sleeping...but not when she's awake! Help please!

Ok guys, this is a tough one. For the past 2 months my mum (age 51 and very active) has woken up (after about 5 hours of sleep) with excrutiating neck pain. She's done x-rays and such and the results came back that she had osteoarthritis of some of the disks between the cervical spine.

So she's been seeing a physiotherapist who has prescribed exercises, as well as a chiropracter who told her to use a certain pillow. My mum has tried several pillows and patches and such, however she has still got a HUGE amount of neck pain that wakes her up after about 4-5 hours of sleep. But the weird thing is, when she's up and about doing exercise, cooking, grocery shopping etc. the pain goes away and she feels absolutely fine. So it's obvious that the pain manifests while she is sleeping.

I really need to get to the bottom of this...I've searched the net and on all the sites the problems seem to stem from the other way around (i.e. pain when awake, relieved when sleeping). Can anybody shed some light on what I can do to help my mum? It ***** seeing her like this.

Thank you so much guys, David.

[femmy29]

It could be due to how she is sleeping at night such that it is aggravating her neck condition.  Have her sleep on her side with her shoulder tucked underneath the pillow such that only her neck and head are resting on the pillow.  

Movement tends to help reduce the pain from osteoarthritis so it makes sense that she is in less pain during the day when she is up and moving about.  

Also, taking an anti-inflammatory medicine at night before she goes to bed might help reduce the pain that manifests during her sleep.  She could also talk with her physician about getting a shot of steroids in her neck as steroids are a powerful anti-inflammatory that could give her relief for up to a month.

Best of luck.  I know how hard it is to see our moms in pain.  

femmy