A young man came to the outpatient clinic, recently his neck pain is very strong, ask him if he looks at the cell phone every day? The patient nodded his head in embarrassment. I told the patient that this was "cell phone neck". After I explained the danger and consequences, the patient said he would try his best to reduce the time he spent playing with his cell phone. Half a month later, the patient's symptoms were significantly improved when he was rechecked. In fact, not only young people, but also many middle school students and even elementary school students nowadays have neck problems due to prolonged head down.
What is cell phone neck? As the name implies, it is a series of symptoms such as neck discomfort caused by looking at a cell phone. In a broader sense, anything that is caused by the same action as looking at a cell phone can be called "cell phone neck", which is essentially a cervical spine lesion caused by playing with cell phones and other electronic devices for a long time. Nowadays, neck problems caused by cell phones or electronic handheld devices have become a very common problem among teenagers and even children.
What are the manifestations? The most common manifestations: neck straightening, pain or shoulder and back pain and stiffness; there may also be symptoms of stiffness and pain in the neck and back, sometimes with limited neck movement, dizziness, headache, panic, chest tightness, nausea, etc. The danger of "cell phone neck" to the cervical spine, because a person's head weighs about 5kg, when looking at a cell phone, usually at least 60° angle, then due to physical leverage and gravity, a person's neck muscles have to bear the weight of more than 25kg. The stability of the cervical spine is lower in the entire spine, long-term head down will lead to unbalanced pressure on the cervical discs, as well as the relaxation of the muscles and ligaments in the back of the neck and muscle stiffness, resulting in the disappearance of the normal physiological convexity of the cervical spine straightened, or even "anti-bow".
How to prevent it? It's easy to say, but hard to do. The main prevention of "cell phone neck" is to control the use time of electronic devices such as cell phones to avoid increasing the burden on the cervical spine. In order to avoid "cell phone neck", the first thing is to change the bad posture, in the process of looking at the phone, consciously raise the hand, the center of the phone screen and eyes at the same height, so that the neck remains upright. The second is to try to shorten the time and often change the posture. If you must use the phone, it is best to move your neck frequently and change your neck posture to improve the tension of the neck muscle groups and relieve neck muscle fatigue. Properly do neck exercise: you can cross your hands to hold the back of the neck, head backward force, hands to be moderate force to confront, last 5 ~ 10 seconds, relax for 3 ~ 5 seconds, and then static force confrontation, repeatedly do 5 ~ 7 times a day, can be repeated several times.
