November Beards Cause Spinal Injury Epidemic
- Zoo Knudsen
- 2 hours ago
- 4 min read
Belvidere, NE - No-Shave November may be over, but thousands of newly bearded men are suffering the potentially life-threatening negative health effects resulting from abnormal pressure on the cervical spine caused by beard induced postural changes.
"Literally everything comes down to posture and the mysterious force of gravity," Dr. Frank Grimes, a chiropractor in Belvidere who specializes in neck bones and facial hair health, explained. "The average full beard adds upwards of 88 pounds of angular face weight. This leads to a forward leaning neck position, and an additional 400 newtons of force is required to keep the cervical spine from simply snapping like a dry twig."
Grimes coined the phrase "beard neck" over a decade ago and his since demonstrated its impact using powerful functional MRI technology in a study funded by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health comparing subjects with and without full beards. He points to an fMRI pairing from the study on a poster placed in one of the examination rooms in his bustling chiropractic clinic and barbershop. "The brain on the right is a man with a glorious natural full beard who eventually succumbed to acute beard neck. Do you see how some areas are brighter? That's the problem, at a cellular level."
Beard epidemiologist James Dalton, who works at the Nebraska College of Technical Cosmetology and sports an ample 9-month Garibaldi beard, believes that more than 100 million new beards were grown this November. And men with new beards appear to be most at risk, particularly those attempting an audacious Bandholz style. "These are men with relatively weak neck muscles and often a small or even recessed chin. They are simply unprepared. I recommend that rookies start out with something simple, like a soul patch or a goatee, and only work their way up to a full beard, perhaps a sassy French Fork, after 1 to 2 years of targeted exercises to strengthen the supportive muscular and bony architecture.
Once beard neck has set in, proper treatment is necessary to prevent weakened muscles and ligaments form collapsing. This can lead to spinal misalignments, known to chiropractic experts as a subluxation, that can interfere with the function of cervical spinal nerves by pathological musculoskeletal dynamics or even direct compression by a vertebral segment or bulging disk. Pain is a common consequence, but also widespread organ dysfunction and even death. Broadway legend Sebastian St. LeMieux, as famous for his trademark Bandholz beard as for his multiple Tony awards playing the sardonic robot sidekick in Space Ace: The Space Ace Goes to Mars, recently made headlines when his head fell off after a carbon fiber support scarf got caught in a subway door.
Only a chiropractor certified in facial hair health, like Dr. Grimes, has the experience and expertise to handle beard neck-related illness. "Often I can help prevent problems before they even start. And if a patient is already having symptoms, appropriate treatment is almost always successful as long as they don't wait too long to come in or if they just don't want to get better hard enough. Sometimes the beard just can't be saved, and, sadly, I have to recommend barbathanasia."
New beards may be more likely to result in acute beard neck, but are the millions of men around the world still hanging on to their pandemic beards off hook? What about beard veterans who have sported lengthy growths, like a lumberjack or a bold power beard, for decades? According to Dr. Grimes, men who have kept their rugged look even after the SARS-CoV-2 virus mysteriously disappeared in August of 2022 as well as those who have had a beard since childhood are still at risk of developing serious complications:
A typical full beard adds an additional 400 newtons of postural torque to what the neck of a man with face baldness has to deal with when sitting or standing upright. It may take years in men with better conditioned face and neck muscles, but the spine is eventually going to be pulled out of alignment, which forces them to lean backwards to counterbalance the weight. I've seen healthy adult men reduced to being pulled around in a wagon, and some of them end up suffocating under the weight of their beards. It's really sad."
Grimes has published a series of landmark case reports in the prestigious Online Publishing Module #79,215: Beard Neck, Text Neck, Really All the Necks demonstrating the potential destructive nature of beard neck as well as the power of chiropractic treatment. He recalls one encounter while backpacking in Acadia National Park in August. "This guy had collapsed near Thunder Hole, and he was short of breath, weak, dehydrated, and riddled with cervical subluxations under a bushy Balbo beard. I never leave home without my travel Activator, and after a few highly specific adjustments and a quart of rehydration solution he was able to make it back to his car unassisted."
There are frequently unintended and unexpected consequences when large numbers of people make sudden lifestyle changes without proper planning, and the epidemic of beard neck with its many physical, mental, and spiritual complications is no exception. According to Grimes, even he has been surprised by some of the changes he has seen. "The human body is always evolving in order to find equilibrium, but it's an imperfect process. I've seen a number of men with beards who have developed so-called "male pattern baldness" over the past few years and I have to wonder if it's an attempt to shift hair weight into a more balanced distribution."
Dr. Grimes is currently offering a November Beard Neck special package at a significant discount. This includes weekly tracking of beard depth and weight along with a full electrodiagnostic assessment of the underlying support structures and corrective treatment, if indicated, for only $99. Call today!