Answering cell phone pain complaints
DALLAS—Jill Garonzik Kelley of Allen, Texas, is thankful for unlimited minutes on her cell phone. After all, she did rack up 4,500 last month.
What the 41-year-old advertising strategist is not as happy about is the pain after a long day of calls. “If I’m holding the phone on my shoulder and I don’t move it around, it becomes a neck thing,” she said. “And then sometimes I feel it in the middle of my forearm going right up through my wrist and it will hurt for a while.”
The general aches cell phone users such as Kelley describe are sometimes referred to casually as “cell phone elbow.” Less frequently, some might have pain related to excessive texting. Doctors, while careful to point out that the ailments are not necessarily caused by cell phone use, say they are seeing an increasing number of patients with such pains.
“Cell phone elbow” is associated with people who talk for long periods of time while holding their neck crooked and elbow bent.
There is no accurate gauge of how widespread the problem is, and not every cell phone user is affected the same way. But in extreme cases, the pain can be associated with a condition called cubital tunnel syndrome. Similar to the pain associated with the better-known carpal tunnel syndrome, cubital tunnel syndrome is a compression of the ulnar nerve near the elbow.
Dr. Dennis Stripling, an orthopedist at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas who specializes in hand surgery, says he has seen an increased number of patients with the syndrome. “A significant number” of them complain of pain after holding a phone to their ear with their elbow flexed at more than 90 degrees, he says.
“People who do telephone sales will come in complaining about their left hand if they were holding the phone in their left hand and writing with their right.”
Stripling explained that holding a phone to the ear with the elbow flexed may aggravate cubital tunnel syndrome, but that it does not necessarily cause it. Still, anyone who feels numbness and tingling along the side of the hand where the pinkie and the ring finger are should stop crooking that elbow. And if that doesn’t help, consult a doctor immediately, or risk paralysis, and permanent loss or impairment of fine-motor skills.
Dr. John White, an anesthesiologist, pain management specialist and partner at American Pain and Wellness in Plano, Texas, says he, too, sees more cell phone-related problems these days, although he does not blame the phones outright.
“With pain, there are usually overlapping issues,” White said. “Sometimes there is chronic inflammation or an underlying postural issue in which one side is used more than the other. Then when you hold the phone against the shoulder or do repetitive texting, it becomes the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
Excessive texting, White says creates problems because it requires short, little motions that don’t effectively use the muscles.
“You need to allow muscles their full range of movement from contraction to elongation. You need to take the time and put forth the effort periodically to make them happy by allowing them to be all they can be. Take a break, step back, and take care of the muscles that are taking care of you.”
Dr. Victoria Knoll, an orthopedic surgeon, says that the most common condition caused by excessive cell phone use is overuse tendinitis. While the muscle, the tendon and the joint may be affected, the pain and inflammation occur in the tendon. The condition is also common to people who type all day on the computer, she says.
Knoll says she is most concerned when patients report numbness in their fingers, particularly at night or in the morning, or weakness in the hands. These symptoms could indicate cubital tunnel syndrome or even tumors pushing on the nerves, she says. But if it hurts only while the person is using the cell phone or texting, then it’s probably the less serious condition of overuse tendinitis.
And her solution? “Quit the activity that aggravates it if you can,”
Knoll said. “And if that’s not an option, find a way to change how you do it.”
But younger users can take heart from Stripling’s observation that cell phone pain seems to be a grown-up problem.
“I don’t recall ever seeing any kids with problems associated with this—just adults,” he said. “Kids don’t have as much tendency for stiffness with their more supple joints, and they have smaller digits so they don’t have to compress them as much as adults do to text.”
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