Why you have neck or upper back pain - the iHunch
Pain in the neck and upper back is a truly enormous
problem. Here’s how big: of 400 million people in
Europe, statistics show that perhaps 60 million will
be in acute pain right now, including headaches.
Forty-five million people in the USA and 600,000 in
New Zealand will have a problem right now. You are
not alone! What’s going on?
Here’s how it happens. We all start out upright:
watch four-year-olds running around with their
heads balanced perfectly above their shoulders.
But then we all bend forward to do things – in
school and on into adult life. Do enough of this and
the upper/middle back tightens into that bent-
forward hunch.
Then the muscles along the back of the neck have
to work several times harder just to hold the head
up – and they strain, scar and tighten. This puts a
compressive load on the joints in the neck giving
them a tendency to eventually jam up and lock,
which can cause acute pain and headaches. In the
worst cases discs and nerves become involved,
with pain spreading down the arms. Whiplash and
impact injuries also take their toll, but that upper
back hunching probably underlies the majority of
upper back and neck problems in the world today.
See the iHUNCH page on the Backpod’s website
www.backpod.co.nz.
And it’s getting worse. This forward-bending stoop
has accelerated in the last few years with the
advent of laptops, tablets, smartphones and similar
- see the Wikipedia entry on the iHunch. Unlike
desktop computers you can’t detach the keyboards
from the small screens, so users tend to hunch
forward even more. What to do?
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Introduction
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