A lot of patients come in and say, "I don't want to end up looking like that old lady pushing that walker around the grocery store hunched forward, barely able to lift her head and looking over the edge of the shopping cart."

First of all, let's think about it. What causes it? It could be from a trauma experienced from the past. It could be a car accident from twenty years ago, for example. It could lead to poor posture and pain today, and possibly that hunch back. That's why it's important to get checked out immediately after a car accident and make sure there are no serious injuries. And that any problem gets corrected, and that your body heals properly.

Hunch back and can also be caused by poor posture. Look around and see how many people are on their phones with their heads pointed straight down looking at the phone?

That causes your your neck to eventually lose its curve and it increases that curve in the upper back but in the wrong direction, right where that hunch can come from; this is called a kyphosis. Poor posture can also lead to painful conditions like headaches, cervicogenic headaches which are headaches that develop in the neck but are felt in the head, tension headaches, upper back pain, upper back tension. and other painful conditions in the neck and upper back area. It can even lead to numbness, tingling, or pain in the arms and into the hands.

The good news is that it cant be treated, it can be fixed and it's also something that can be prevented with the right type of care.

In our office, we do a lot of treatments that focus on posture and alignment of the spine, so we can correct and prevent this condition. Chiropractic adjustments can help, physical therapy is one of the most important things to do and massage therapy will help loosen up the muscles.

Now in our office we provide chiropractic, physical therapy and massage therapy but there's also other procedures that can help like trigger point injections and I can help set you up with somebody with that, if it comes down to it.

Perhaps some of the most important things however are those that are done at home, devices that patients can use to correct their posture. The at-home devices are extremely important.

You're not going to go into the clinic everyday, but you can use these home devices every day for an extended period of time. That helps with posture and with painful conditions like headaches and upper back pain. You wear some of these devices and others you lay on to help out with the curvature of the neck. you can also use them with exercises.

So, lots of opportunity out there to fix that "hunch back"!

If you like this, please comment below and if this is of interest to you or if you have any questions about hunchback, posture, treatment, at-home devices or anything that I've discussed, I'd love to talk to you further about that and answer any questions that you may have and help out with any concerns that you may have about that.

Thank you for listening and the best of health to you.

 

To schedule an appointment with Dr. Gill, please call (425) 347-8614 or contact us here.