It’s time to text out and tune in to the real world when it comes to our phone use. Our iPhones and Androids are running and ruining our lives. The masses are becoming corporate sheep that constantly stare at their phones all day. Over use of the phone is turning into a habitual epidemic that is leading us to a whole host of problems. Besides the social disconnect, and the ruined lives from car accidents from texting, neck pain can also result from these sustained postural aberrations of looking down at your overly priced gizmo gadget widget next best thing phone. Chiropractors have termed this condition as Text Neck.
Text Neck from too much phone use can cause severe pain and can lead to permanent injury to the neck if not dealt with appropriately. Especially when the cause of the pain to the person is unknown, like so many of the gradual aches and pains that occurs in the neck. Text neck not only causes neck pain, but also upper back pain and excruciating wanna put yourself out of your misery type headaches.
Sometimes it can be difficult for the doctor to make the connection that the patient’s neck pain is coming from their phone. A patient presents with neck pain and describes the history of their pain as coming on gradually for no apparent reason. This is why it can be difficult to determine the cause of some aches and pains, because the patient hasn’t put 2 and 2 together yet. A good chiropractor can fish this out of a person, but it is not easy as people have a hard time fathoming that their recreational phone use is causing a catastrophe in their neck. There is also the denial stage that someone has a problem with their phone use that also causes the diagnosis of Text Neck to be difficult.
The habit of looking down at the phone to play games, surf the internet, check your facebook, shop online, watch videos on youtube, and read books inadvertently causes over use and under use of muscles in the front and back of the neck. Imagine going to the gym for a year and only working on your pectoral muscles, this is similar to what constantly checking and playing your favorite time waster games does to your precious neck. If your spine was as visible as your face was, we would all take better care of it.
The neck has a similar curve to the low back, and when the neck is out of this healthy neutral position, it distorts the natural neutral lordotic curve of the neck. Maintaining a reversal of the curve in your neck, and out of the neutral position, it slowly deforms the supporting ligaments of the cervical spine. The ligaments in the back of the neck get overstretched and the ligaments in the front of the neck undergo contracture and become shortened. Eventually this will cause a reversal of the curve in neck, even when the person returns to the neutral position of their head being over their shoulders. This habit eventually creates what is known as military neck, a straight neck that is misaligned.
Even worse, when the misalignments of the neck can become so bad that a kyphotic curve results, which is a reverse of the lordotic curve. The unbalanced overly stretched and under stretched supporting spine ligaments add stress to joints, nerves, discs, and muscles. These structures will wear out and can cause premature degeneration of the neck, bulging discs, and numbness and tingling down the arms. Muscles will also become overly active and under active, or weak and tight, and overly strong and lengthened.
Text neck can become a nightmare to deal with, especially if it dealt with by your good amigos named Tylenol and Ibuprofen, and worst yet continuing the prolonged use of looking down at your phone.
As a San Diego chiropractor, I routinely treat patients that have neck pain due to their habit of playing with their phones. Some patients are so addicted to their phone that they use their phone while they are being treated on the chiropractic table. As a chiropractor, we have a wide variety of therapies to help your neck. Do your neck a favor and put down your phone.
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