Using your smartphone might be a pain in the neck – literally!

Our Naperville IL chiropractor sees a growing number of patients with “text neck,” a term that describes the neck pain and damage caused by looking down at a cell phone, tablet, smartphone, or other wireless devices too often or for too long.

If you have neck pain and use a smartphone or any other digital device, you might have text neck. Fortunately, our chiropractor in Naperville IL provides safe, effective, drug-free treatment for text neck. We can also help you avoid this painful condition by showing you ways to prevent text neck.

About Text Neck

The symptoms of text neck develop when you overuse the muscles in your neck, shoulders, and back while using a smartphone or other device. If you are like most people, you tend to hunch forward as you look down and forward at your device. Unfortunately, looking downwards like that increases the gravitational pull on your 10 – 12-pound head. Bending your neck at the angle you normally use to look at a smartphone puts 60 pounds of pressure on your cervical spine, which is the part of the spine above your shoulders.

Keeping yourself in this position for a long time, or assuming this position too frequently, can cause serious stress on your muscles and affect your spine. Text neck can cause muscle pain and tightness that could trigger painful muscle spasms in your neck, shoulders, and back. Excessive bending of the neck can actually change the curvature of the spine and cause misalignments of the bones of the spine.

You may be asking yourself, “People have been looking downward to read for hundreds of years. Why didn’t they get text neck?” It is true that people have looked downward at books for centuries, but the advent of smartphones, tablets, cell phones, and other handheld devices have caused people to look down more often and for longer periods of time.

The most common symptoms of text neck are neck pain and soreness. Looking down at your digital device too much each day can also result in upper back pain that ranges from a dull, nagging pain to sharp, severe muscle spasms in your upper back. You might also experience shoulder pain and tightness that can lead to excruciating shoulder muscle spasms.

You might try to ignore the symptoms of text neck at first, even forgetting about the pain as you become engrossed in your Facebook messages, tweets, and emails. Eventually, though, the pain becomes unbearable every time you look down at your phone. If you continue to use your smartphone without addressing your text neck, the condition can make other activities difficult, such as looking down to tie your shoes or turning your head from side to side.

Naperville IL Chiropractor Provides Neck Pain Treatment for Text Neck

Since text neck affects your muscles and bones, a chiropractor is the most qualified type of doctor to provide neck pain treatment for the condition – chiropractors specialize in the treatment and prevention of musculoskeletal conditions like text neck. Our Naperville, IL, chiropractor provides a number of treatment options and prevention strategies to help you prevent and overcome this painful condition.

Chiropractic adjustments restore the bones of your spine, known as vertebrae, to their natural position. Bone misalignment resulting from excessive bending of your neck can put pressure on the nerves that exit the spinal cord in your cervical spine. Restoring misaligned vertebrae reduces pressure on the nerves to alleviate pain.

Acupuncture is a safe, drug-free treatment for pain associated with nerve problems, such as text neck. During acupuncture, our chiropractor places ultra-thin needles in specific locations in your skin to improve the flow of qi, which means “life force” in Chinese.

Our chiropractor may even recommend auricular therapy, which is similar to acupuncture except auricular therapy involves placement of those ultra-thin needles into the ear rather than across the body. Auricular therapy is another type of treatment used in ancient China.

If you have neck pain associated with using a smartphone or other wireless device, you may benefit from chiropractic care for text neck from Symmetry Chiropractic & Acupuncture. Our chiropractor has been treating a growing number of patients for this condition, so we have the expertise and experience to provide safe and effective treatment for text neck. Symmetry Chiropractic & Acupuncture is located at 3108 Illinois Rte 59 Ste 124 in Naperville, IL. Make your appointment today by calling (630) 983-1805.