The pain might not be coming from your neck; as much as 80% of neck pain doesn’t. For example, if your stomach is cramping from eating food that you are sensitive to, that cramping will pull on the esophagus and cause tension in the front of the throat. To relieve that tension, your head will go forward and down and put strain on the muscles of the neck. What can you do? In this example, you can pay attention to what you eat. You can also get Rolfing sessions. Rolfers are trained to work on the body in this holistic way.