Newly Licensed Chiropractic Surgeons Turning to Cervical Spinal Fusion to Treat Text Neck.....

Chiropractic surgeons performing preventative cervical spinal fusion on a 15-year-old recurrent iPhone user

When the California state legislature approved licensure of the first ever certified chiropractic surgeons in May, skeptics were quick to question their competency. They also whined about the supposed lack of any need for their services to pretty much anybody who would listen. As usual, the men and women, mostly men, that run the government know what is best for the general public.

These pioneers in the field of chiropractic surgery, each of which completed a four-year chiropractic education while also watching all eleven seasons of Grey's Anatomy, are already making an impact. Their first order of business has been to focus on developing a cure for a nearly ubiquitous and potentially deadly condition: text neck. 

Although the exact weight of the human head is unclear, physicists from Europe believe it to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 60 pounds. As the neck flexes, the weight pulling down on the cervical spine increases exponentially, reaching upwards of 200 pounds at a 30 degree angle and nearly 3 tons at 60 degrees. Anyone daring to flex their neck greater than 60 degrees risks instant death as their head separates from the spinal column, rolling down a steep hill as they comically chase after it.

That's the price we pay for having 24-7 access to the internet and the ability to interact socially with our friends and family while following Justin Bieber inspired parody/porn accounts like @JustInBeaver. According to research published in Online Publishing Module #14, 517 - Implications of Smartphone technology on Spinal Health - Human, Chimpanzee, and Bonobo, long term stress on the cervical spine can result in a variety of health problems. In fact, many people who regularly use smartphone devices suffer neck and back pain, respiratory conditions, gastrointestinal problems, and heart disease. Some even die.

“It's either the worst epidemic that mankind has ever faced or it’s at least pretty common,” Mort Fishman MD, chief of spine health at The Spine Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine Paradise Wellness Prevention Institute, explained. “All day long I notice people looking at their devices. I notice them!”

A young woman, shown here mere moments before experiencing Cephalospinal Separation Syndrome (CSS), is ordering toilet paper on Amazon Prime

Having trouble wrapping your head around just how heavy 60 pounds is? Try this thought experiment. First imagine a one pound bar of dark chocolate. Now imagine that you have 60 of them hanging from your neck for hours each day. Now imagine that they're actually made with white chocolate. Bet you didn't see that coming you racist son of a bitch.

Dr. Fishman, who is a board tolerated medical doctor with interest in both stuff and things related to the spine, believes that children are the future of text neck casualties. "Youth today are growing up with smartphones, and they're experiencing this problem from an early age. I'm concerned that unless we evolve eyes on stalks, we may soon see the first generation of children to have a shorter life span than their parents. Parent's need to focus more intently on the daily activities of their children. They need to more involved."

Frank Grimes CCS, chiropractic surgeon and president of the American Hyperbole Society's Things Outside Our Area of Expertise Section, revealed that the effect of text neck is similar to taking your eyelid and stretching it up and over your head and holding it there for sixty minutes to one hour.

A woman suffering from text neck, shown here using an external cervical fixation device

Grimes, who specializes in treating text neck, first began seeing patients with symptoms about six or seven years ago. "Prior to then it was rare to see people looking down for more than a few seconds. Like when they thought they saw a penny on the ground or were about to fall through an open manhole."

While experts like Grimes understand that it is nearly impossible to completely remove these technologies from our day to day lives, they stress that there are now surgical interventions that can prevent injury to the neck, brain, lungs, and heart. The procedure that they've brought to the table is surgical fusion of the cervical spine, which involves using metal or wooden screws to brace the vertebral column internally, holding it in the ideal position without the need for unsightly external fixation devices. "It's horrifically painful, mostly because legislation to license chiropractic anesthesiologists is still stuck in committee, but it is a permanent solution to the problem."