Hi everyone,

I was wondering if it's normal to have pain when maintaining your locs. I did a search on this and didn't come up with anything. I've had my locs for 6 years and always interlocked them myself. It was never really painless but nothing I couldn't deal with. A few months ago I began to develop chronic upper back pain. Trying to hold my arms up for six-plus hours really aggravated it. I got other people to do the last two maintenance sessions, but I very much prefer to do it myself. It's so expensive and uncomfortable. My back was getting better with treatment so I decided to try just doing one at a time this month. I still got pain pretty much as soon as I raised my arms.

So my question is if anyone else has dealt with this and if there's a good posture to use when doing your own hair or some kind of secret to not getting hurt. I get emotional every time I think about cutting my locs after so long but sometimes I feel like that's going to be my only choice.

Thank you for any comments or advice!