Cervical Traction

In today’s world, where neck pains and injuries have become a common thing due to the increased usage of mobile phones and laptops, not taking care of your spine and neck can be extremely dangerous. Sitting in front of the computer screen for hours without a break, or using a cellphone without moving the neck can lead to serious health issues. This happens because the blood and thus, oxygen don’t get to flow properly through the veins, resulting in an unusual behavior inside of veins and causing severe discomfort in the neck.

Our neck is made up of vertebrae that extend from the skull to the upper torso. Cervical discs absorb the shock between the bones. The ligaments, muscles, and bones of the neck support our head and allow for proper motion. Any abnormalities, inflammation, or injury, can cause neck pain or stiffness.

Some people get to experience stiffness in neck or pain, ranging from mild to severe. This occurs either due to the wrong posture or by some injury from an accidental fall. These neck pains are mostly not much severe and can be relieved within a few days with proper care and adequate rest. However, in some cases when the patient doesn’t attempt to cure the pain immediately, it can lead to serious issues. Not curing the pain at the right time can make your neck feel more painful and stiff, consequently letting the pain travel to the shoulders and upper back.

A wide number of symptoms contribute to the occurrence of neck pains and stiffness. This includes having the wrong posture, working at a desk for too long without changing the position, jerking the neck while exercising, sleeping with your neck being in a bad position, lifting too much weight, not being able to sleep properly for any reason, taking too much tension or stress. Other than these common reasons, a neck injury may also contribute to the symptoms above. Our neck is one of the most used and vulnerable parts of our body and in case of falls, accidents, and sports, neck takes up the most pain. Sudden jerking of head called “whiplash” or any damage to the vertebrae or the neck bones can cause way too much pain in the neck area.

Usually, a doctor would suggest you get a pricey surgery done for relieving the neck pains or undergo physiotherapy. Both of these methods involve high expenditure plus possible life long side effects for your health. Putting your hard earned money at it would be a risk, so to treat the mild to severe range of neck problem; one can benefit from a method that involves no radiations or machines and only requires stretching of the body parts for relieving the pain along with an external device to support the neck.

Neck traction or cervical traction is a wonderful drug-free method for curing the neck pains. This item can be used for problems like neck arthritis, herniated/bulging disc in the neck, neck strains and cervical muscle spasms. You don’t need to visit a medical specialist for getting cervical traction done; it can be done easily at home if you know the exact method, along with knowing the right device for your neck.

Basically, cervical traction involves light stretching of the neck joints. Our neck or cervical spine consists of seven vertebrae and can be injured during a fall, a whiplash during a car accident or while sitting in the same posture for hours without taking a break.

The primary goal in traction is to give your neck muscles and pinched nerves an opportunity to be released. In the process, tension is placed on the head to pull it up and away from the neck. This makes for the stretching of the muscles and ligaments around the vertebrae of the spine and expanding the space between the vertebrae. The head is supported by an external device called a cervical collar, or a neck support pad, with the purpose of keeping the head straight so that the neck and spine are in their natural alignment.

It is important to note that traction mustn’t be performed without proper knowledge about its procedure. Otherwise, it can put your body to be at a high risk of complications.