Your cell phone can be a pain in the neck, literally. Doctors are warning about a new epidemic called "text neck" -- the long term side effects experienced from texting or using other electronic gadgets.
At just 7-years-old, Ferris Rosson is in rehab for his neck. He wasn’t in an accident. His injuries are from texting on his phone and playing games on his iPad.
"Whenever I’m looking down, my neck starts to hurt," Ferris said. "It sort of feels like you have to lift a really heavy weight, like a hundred pound weight on your neck."
His mother first noticed it a few months back. "It wasn’t until he started playing video games that he started making complaints and he was on it way longer than he should’ve been, it’s my fault," Melissa Rosson said.
It's pain that Melissa has experienced as well, so she took her son to a chiropractor.
"The biggest concern - is our kids because they are on these units for a long time," said Dr. Elliot Cintron of Healthsource Chiropractic.
If you don’t think there are serious consequences involved, doctors say, think again. Taking a look at an x-ray of a normal person, you can see a "C" shape to the spine, while the neck of a person who has been texting too much, the spine is seen actually leaning forward.
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"Now when you’re holding a 10 pound head in a neutral position that’s not a problem as you keep leaning forward that ten pounds becomes 20, 30, 40 pounds of pain, stress, tension," Dr. Cintron said.
People, especially children, can experience pain, numbness and trouble sleeping, and if not corrected, it can cause long term effects.
In addition to special exercises, Ferris gets his spine adjusted regularly. And his mother has cut down his time staring at the screen.
"You got to put your own phones down an look at what your kids are doing cause they are growing," she said.
Even though Ferris says it isn’t always easy, "Once you get on, it takes a little while to get off because there’s so many exciting superheroes like Batman, Superman."
Dr. Cintron says there’s one thing you can start doing right now to protect yourself.
"Correcting yourself is great. Holding it up and texting in front of you that’s a great position to be in, you don’t want to be (looking) down here for a long period of time."
Doctors say there are signs your neck is heading in the wrong direction. In addition to pain, you could experience mood swings and trouble sleeping.
