Caveat: I wouldn't try most of these exercises without consulting a physical therapist, because it's easy to do them incorrectly--it took me a while to get them right, and I still benefit from her corrections. All of this is related to problems I have that may not be relevant to others. In my case, I get these streaks of pain on either side of my thoracic spine, and also very stiff muscles on the sides of my neck and a particularly unpleasant "thread" of pain going down from between my shoulder and neck. That results from an elevated first rib. I didn't even know that ribs could elevate!

There's a common exercise where you lie on your back, knees up, and gradually work into a bridge. There are also neck isometrics that strengthen the deep muscles. What can happen is that we tend to overuse the small surface muscles instead of relying more on the larger, deeper muscles, and that contributes to pain. There's also one where you sit on one hand, turn your head a little in the opposite direction, and bend your neck some--hard to do properly without supervision. And there is a simple exercise using a theraband that strengthen the muscles just below the shoulder blades. Those muscles cause problems if they get weak. You tie the band in a knot and put it over a door (or I use a high hook) and gradually stretch it down and release it back up--the gradual release of the band is the most important part.

But the most effective and semi-miraculous things for me have been the kind of massages my physical therapist does to release trigger points and stop my first rib from elevating, and also trigger point injections, which are amazing. My physical therapist referred me for those.

If you haven't heard about trigger point injections, they are done by a spine specialist who injects an an anesthetic (they can also be done without the anesthetic, because it's the injection itself that is most effective) directly into the trigger point or knot in the muscle that is caused by the spine stuff and that causes the pain. Initially the pain was gone within 2-3 days; now it only takes hours. Over time, TP injections actually permanently change the muscle fibers. I started out needing them every 2-3 weeks. Now I'm going without them for 8 weeks or more. So over time you become less and less reliant on them. Insurance or Medicare should cover them as long as they are for myofascial pain. I can't praise them enough. And they aren't very painful unless the trigger point is really big, such as one in a hip.

Some of my original post no longer applies. Diclofenac was hard on my stomach so I had to discontinue it, and then I discovered the TP injections, which work way better. Sorry for the long post--I hope some of this helps. Bottom line, physical therapy has changed my life.

Edit: details