I have a hump on the back of my neck. Can you help me get rid of it?
If I had a penny for every female patient who asked me about her neck ‘hump’… (cue the Fergie song!)
Doesn’t that bulge at the back of your neck seem like it’s growing more pronounced every day?
Developing a hump at the back of your neck?
The truth is, you don’t have a bulge or hump growing at the back of your neck. There is a part of the spine (called C7, or cervical vertebra #7,) where the bones of your neck meet the bones of your mid back. When we sit many hours a day for school, work, driving, and texting we tend to slouch and hold our heads forward way over the front of our entire body. Happens to the best of us!
When you sit up straight all day, every day, and restore alignment of the head over the rest of the body as well as the teaching the shoulders to relax back on to the rib cage, the visual appearance of your neck/back bulge will go away almost completely.
Some tips:
– Pilates: geared towards restoring muscular alignment of the spine. Helps counteract sitting at work for too many hours.
– Sitting at the *edge* of your chair to maintain a natural low back curve. You will use back muscles to support healthy curves of the spine instead of slouching into a rounded posture. It will feel unnatural for the first 3-4 weeks. Stick with it.
– Stand up hourly and release your tight chest muscles by pressing your elbow and hand into the wall at 90 degrees and leaning forward into the stretch. Walk your fingers up the wall to hit other tight muscles that pull your slouchy shoulders forward.
– Chiropractic: Have the alignment of your upper back checked by a chiropractor. Many chiropractors utilize a ‘treat and release’ philosophy and will help you restore comfort & health to your spine while teaching you how to maintain on your own over the long term (like us!)
Please be mindful that if you have what looks like a back hump in addition to symptoms like fatigue, dry skin, cold intolerance, constipation, foggy thinking or irregular menstruation that these can be signs of an under active thyroid which should be addressed by your medical doctor.
Hump still got ya down? Let us help you.