Text Neck: Symptoms and Treatments

Text neck is a common term in social circles, social media, and the news. Although its discussions keep increasing, most people do not consider it a serious condition. 

Patients often complain about text neck symptoms. However, not all are convinced that the problem started from them staring down at their phones. Unfortunately, text neck is dangerous and can cause severe pain.

Text neck posture is not new. It affected many people from centuries before cell phones came along. It can develop when you spend hours leaning your head forward doing activities such as sewing, drawing, or reading books. The condition only got the name “text neck” due to the cultural addiction to mobile devices, which increases the time spent hunched over.

What Is Text Neck?

Text neck is the repetitive stress caused to the neck due to the forward positioning of the head for an extended period. It affects the cervical spine curvature, shoulder muscles, supporting ligaments, and the neck.

The Weight of Your Head

On average, your head can weigh 10 pounds. You do not have to think about the weight of your head if your spine is healthy. Your neck can handle it with ease. However, stress on your cervical spine increases significantly every time you bend your neck forward. Experts say the cervical spine experiences double the strain as your head tilts downwards with every inch.

Staring down at your device strains your cervical spine as the weight increases by 50 pounds. The hours you spend in that posture every day looking at your phone can add a lot of stress to your neck.

Text Neck Symptoms

The tissues in your neck can become inflamed and sore if stretched for a long time. Repeated stress and strain results in pinched nerves, improper spinal curvature, and herniated disks.

Text neck causes soreness and neck pain. Spending a lot of time looking down at your cell phone can also cause:

·      Shoulder tightness and pain, resulting in shoulder muscle spasms that can be painful.

·      Chronic, nagging, and sharp upper back pain and muscle spasms.

·      Neurological symptoms and pain radiating down your arm.

·      Early onset of problems like arthritis in your neck can lead to more problems if you have text neck.

Is There a Text Neck Cure?

Various treatments can manage text neck pain and symptoms. A long-term program can reverse the underlying causes of your text neck symptoms. 

Treatments

Chiropractic treatments can conservatively manage text neck. Your chiropractor will assess your neck structure, posture, and lifestyle. They do so to identify the cause of the problem to implement treatment effectively.

The treatment reduces the aggravating factors like the positioning of the device and the time you spend staring at your screen. The treatment also aims to reduce muscle tension and pain in your neck area and improve your range of motion in the cervical spine region. It enhances postural awareness, control, and muscular strength.

Your chiropractor will focus on your general posture when standing tall with your stomach pulled in and shoulders back. The doctor will focus on relaxing your shoulders to avoid pulling them back or rounding them.

Behavior modification also treats text neck. You may need to set some rules to reduce your time on your phone. Exercises like scapular stabilization, cervical extension, and cervical extraction can reduce pain. They also increase the range of motion and flexibility of your neck.

For more about text neck, visit Back and Neck Pain Centers at our offices in Seattle, Bellevue, or Tukwila, Washington. Call (206) 233-0818, (206) 772-0088, (425) 649-9335, or (425) 243-1200 to book an appointment today.