Cervical disc...or thunderbird?
CERVICAL DISC…OR THUNDERBIRD?
Have you ever woken up in pain and not able to turn your head very well? Ever yawned and experienced a sudden grab in your neck? Ever had a niggle at the corner where your neck joins your upper body that just won’t go away? If you have, I’m sure you will agree it is something to be avoided at all costs!
Not only is it uncool to walk around looking like a stiff-necked Thunderbird puppet, it is just too easy for your kids/colleagues/partner to play tricks on you (eg Try this: go and sit next to the person with the neck injury, on the side they can’t turn to, and have a conversation with them. Very funny to watch them swivel their whole body around, wincing, to try to focus on you). Anyway I would never advocate making fun of a person with an injury (but that doesn’t stop you doing it…).
Issues with the discs in your neck are definitely something that can be avoided using simple steps, so read on, and whip your head around with glee!
Anatomy-
Remember the jam donut from the lumbar disc article? Well in our necks we have jam donuts between the vertebrae too, albeit smaller ones.
When our spine is in line, with our head sitting on top of our shoulders, it is happy days, and the discs in our neck love life.
What goes wrong-
This is where I test if you have been paying attention for the last few articles!
What positions or actions made the jam push towards the back wall of the donut in the lumbar spine?
If you said sitting, bending over and lifting, go right now and say to someone “I am a genius and deserve a <foot rub/raise/new handbag>”.
In the case of the neck discs, it is the ‘forward head posture’ (referred to in the Thoracic article) that is the culprit for disc damage.
The forward head position compresses the front of the disc at the base of the neck, thereby forcing the jelly nucleus of the disc to the back wall. Over time, this jelly force on the back wall of the disc causes damage and swelling. The bottom cervical (neck) disc is the one most commonly damaged.
Pain can come on gradually or suddenly, and is always accompanied by an inconvenient degree of protective muscle spasm which can stop your head from turning properly – the ‘Thunderbird Affect’.
NB For those unenlightened ones among you, the Thunderbirds was a British science fiction TV series in the 60s, which was acted out by marionette puppets, who, for whatever structural reason, couldn’t turn their heads. I am not British, and was not around in the 60s, yet I can still replicate the bounding stiff-necked walk of the Thunderbird puppets. Growing up, I thought this was a wasted talent – little did I know I would write an article one day, and draw on this very skill…
Disc irritations at the base of our neck can be very slow to settle, lasting weeks or even months. If they are not managed properly, they can come back to haunt you again and again.
What can be done to prevent this-
Don’t let your head keep falling forward off your shoulders!
I bet you don’t even notice it lot of the time, but it only takes looking at a screen, smartphone or even an old fashioned book, for your head to drop forward from it’s rightful position on top of your shoulders. This ‘forward head’ position itself isn’t the issue, rather, the volume of time you spend doing it.
A well aligned head should be the default position for your neck, with forward head positions being just a temporary departure form this.
Computer set up is clearly important, and this has been addressed in the previous chapter.
Doing 10 ‘chin tucks’ every hour helps to relieve pressure in the discs, and remind your body where the head should be. A chin tuck is performed by pulling your head straight back to make a double chin.
So avoid the Thunderbird Affect – sit tall, pull your head back, and put your screen up higher.
Karen Finnin
Musculoskeletal Physiotherapist
karen@physios-online.com