Usually when I see this, it is associated with forward head posture. Forward head posture occurs for many reasons. You may have had a neck injury or whiplash injury that displaced your spine and was never corrected, or it could be due to repetitive motion or repetitive posture.
Especially with the advent of computers, laptops, and mobile devices, you see many people logging long hours with their heads down and forward. This is the position I mean.
What happens when the head rolls forward is that the cervical spine often loses curvature. The upper back follows and begins to round out. This often creates what is called an increased hyposis. A kiphotic curve is found in the thoracic or thoracic spine, also known as the upper and mid back. In the neck and lower back, the curvature opens towards the back and is called lordosis.
The accentuation of one of these curves is called hyperlordosis, and the flattening or loss of one of these curvatures is called hypolordosis. One more thing to keep in mind is that in some cases of head forward and upper back hunching we see cervical kyphosis. This is when the normal “C” curve in the neck, the cervical lordosis, actually curves in the wrong direction. And don’t forget that any misalignment, even millimeters, is enough to block nerve flow by more than 50% of the normal amount.
A cervical kyphosis places an abnormally large amount of stress on the spine, as well as the spinal cord, nerves, and muscles of the neck and upper back. Imagine taking a loose rubber band, pulling on it and stretching it, this is analogous to what you would do to your spinal cord. However, this is a topic for another ezine.
Let’s go back to the upper back. In some cases, we see an extreme hump in the upper back and hyperkyphosis in the thoracic spine. This is often associated with severe degeneration and osteoporosis. Sometimes we will see fractures of the vertebrae that allow this extreme change in alignment to occur. This is called a widow’s hump.
Whatever the case, I see rounding of the upper back more often than I would like. I see it in patients, and they often present to the office with neck or back pain, but not always. I also see it sometimes on relatives, people at the grocery store, you name it, just look around.
Remember that if your posture starts to look like this, then your inner spine will look like this too, and it will usually continue to get worse. Use postural exercises to prevent and get rid of this hump. Also, always be aware of your posture; this can make a big difference because you can correct it if you are in too long a stance or find yourself head-forward too often. Lastly, a great posture correction tool is a neck pillow. It will not only prevent this bad posture, but also keep the nerves free from pressure in other cases.