Anemia - Week 18: old neck pain

I am finally getting a chance to post the week 18 entry which had been sitting in the draft folder.  
Last week I decided to do the head stand. There had been no pain for a few weeks which I attributed to not practicing the head stand at all.  In the past I had been doing it every once in a while.  Was I ready to reintroduce it slowly?  I set up thoroughly, went up slowly, stayed up for a little while then came down very slowly. All seemed fine just as it did in the past but then that "old pain" returned.  I dealt with the pain by using the neck-points and zones I had used before. The pain was on the L occiput and was accompanied by head tension - it was not as bad as it had been in the past but it was not easy to alleviate it. It was on and off.  Here is a link to the Mayo Clinic's website on the causes of neck pain: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/neck-pain/DS00542/DSECTION=causes 

Anemia - Week 16: focus: neck

My right shoulder started feeling heavy once or twice last week while I was sitting at the computer; I stopped immediately knowing what might be next: neck pain.  I rubbed the respective reflex according to the frog on the face projection; the heaviness subsided within a few minutes.  In the past until a few weeks ago, I used to practice headstand, in Sanskrit Sirsasana http://www.yogajournal.com/poses/481.  It had been part of my yoga practice for a long time and I did not attribute it to neck issue.  I had given it a lot of thought and had observed very closely.  I took time setting up the pose, going up and being in the pose, coming down in a very controlled fashion and paid attention to how it felt afterwards.  I always did counter poses.  It never hurt.  My acupuncturist at one point, however, suggested to let go of the pose for a while anyway, so I compromised by cutting down at least.  However, within the last few weeks I decided to drop it completely (I think it was when my inner teacher told me to focus on hip openers).  At this point I am confident that my neck could actually heal completely which is unlike how I felt about it previously.  My neck has been pain free, I think it was a good idea to eliminate the pose for the time being and perhaps reintroduce it slowly down the road.  In addition, I think my alignment generally has improved much and before I got sick, a neck-related protocol was part of my Dien Cham session.  Being mindful about the neck has become of utmost importance to me.  I have come a long way.  To me the neck was somewhat separate from the rest of the spine and I know I am not alone.  Now it is part of the spine and much more integrated in the way I move.  It was probably a combination of factors that resulted in being without any pain for such a long time.