This is just my experience. About 10 yrs ago I got a radiating pain that would shoot from the bottom of my neck down into my shoulders. When I saw the Doc he gave me a sheet of Cervical Spine Exercises. Said to try them and come back if they didn't help. Tried to find the sheet online but couldn't. Here is the closest thing I could find.

http://www.orthoinstitute.com/wp-con...lexercises.pdf

Well, they helped but it took time. I would say it took a couple of years before I felt truly "cured". You have to learn how much to push though. Push too hard and you aggravate the problem. Don't push hard enough and you may or may not be doing any good. That is a hard line for me to find. And it moves from day to day.

The reason I say all this is because I used to have neck pains from time to time. They are pretty much gone now. And when I do have them they get better faster. I attribute the better neck to those exercises.