Neck Pain and Cell Phones/Regular Phones

[dave1234]

This is part of a series I wrote on neck pain on another forum, about a simple thing that we all do that can end up causing severe problems with shoulder pain, neck pain and tingling fingers.

Bergans can cause some of these problems when they are not balanced left to right across the shoulders.

I'll put some more postings on neck pain later on.

It was written in response to a woman who had severe tingling in her fingers and terrible neck pain. She had been to see many doctors who had told her the problem was with a bulging disk in her neck [ this can cause these problems, but unfortunately they only looked at an MRI and that was all ]. She had the surgery to no avail. Tingling and pain were still there. I was also written in response to two young mothers who had been diagnosed with mild scoliosis [ bending of the spine ] and who had been told that surgery was the only option.

After reading the post, she had a neuro-muscular therapist work on some neck muscles and got rid of all the pain in two weeks. Unfortunately she now has some major problems as a result of the neck surgery.

This is the posting I put up:

If you keep the phone or cell phone tucked in between your neck and shoulder, please stop doing so now.

This can lead to some very serious back, neck and finger problems.

Every time you do this, you contract a whole bunch of muscles. These muscles will tighten for the duration of the phone call.

Over time, several problems can happen:

Neck vertebrae can be moved due to the twisting - it takes only 5 degrees of rotation of a vertebral body to put it in a position where pressure can be put on the nerves coming out of the "gaps' [ intervertebral foramen ] of the neck.

http://www.mayfieldclinic.com/Images/PE ... igure9.jpg


Now, this can cause pain right at the neck or it can be referred down to the fingertips.


Take a look at the picture below:

http://www.eorthopod.com/images/Content ... anat02.jpg


See the yellow things ? Those are nerves. The red parts are very important muscles called the “scalenes”.

The gap where the nerves come through is known as the thoracic outlet.

When those muscles get tight from prolonged contraction, they will put pressure on the nerves, causing pain anywhere from the shoulder to the fingertips.

http://lib.store.yahoo.net/lib/headsetzone/ergopain.jpg


http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl= ... US249&sa=N


The next problem is scoliosis or twisting of the spine:


http://www.youcanbefit.com/images/Scoliosis

Now, scoliosis can be caused by a large variety of things, some of which I’ll cover in a future post, but here’s the important thing:

Remember the old song “the leg bone is connected to the hip bone, the hip bone is connected to the leg bone …” well, we must treat the body as a system, not just individual bits and pieces.

When something changes in the neck area, it can cause changes all the way down to the feet.

Take a look at the girl in the picture – notice the high shoulder ?

I have seen several cases of people who have continually used a cell phone on one side of their neck and who have a high shoulder.

Guess what ? When I looked at their backs, they all had scoliosis.

Now does that mean that if you keep holding the phone in your neck, that these things will happen ?

Well, I would say “Is it worth the risk ?”

If anyone out there does not believe this, just continue doing it on a regular basis and contact me in five years. At that time I will give suggestions as best I can as to how to get your life and your health back.

Bye the way, to those ladies who carry toddlers on one hip – please stop right now, or alternately switch sides every so often.

I GUARANTEE that you will end up with severe problems doing that. Maybe not now or in a couple of years, but it will catch up with you.

Same sort of business: one hip goes down, the other goes up [ don’t believe me – stand in front of the mirror with underwear and baby and take a look ]. When the hips move away from normal, muscles get tight, bones get moved, pressure gets put on disks, etc etc.


If you have been to see the doctor and can get no relief, it may be worth checking this out.

Dave