Saturday, February 28, 2009

What Does The Jaw Have To Do With Your Neck?

Think about this; if the lower jaw hinges at the TMJ, where does the upper jaw hinge? If the muscles of the jaw are receiving signals from the brain, what happens if those signals are garbled by some sort of interference? Why does Dr. Norman Thomas, TMJ specialist, recommend that his patients get checked and adjusted by an upper cervical chiropractor?

Here's the short story... The jaw is designed to move in several directions so you can chew and grind food. Muscles that do the work attach at all kinds of angles from points in the skull to points in the jaw. If the TMJ doesn't work right it is important to discover the primary cause, which can be in the neck, skull, nerves, or the muscles they run, tissues in the jaw joint, or even the teeth. In order for the dentist to get a good picture of the influence of the teeth, the NUCCA procedure can bring balance back to the neck, skull, and nerves.

If there is another factor working, the dentist will be better able to address it once the other factors are eliminated.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Spinal Cord Injuries...

Spinal cord injuries are something that can puzzle any clinician. Sure there are the overconfident ones that will give a blanket statement, "You'll never walk again," or, "it will take at least one year to get better." But can we ask some questions first? How about this one - "What kinds of things will maximize my ability to heal from this injury?" Here's one that is going to make the neurologist's head hurt - "How can you be sure that it won't get better?"

Asking questions is what drove Columbus west, and asking questions is what drove Edison to invent the light bulb
successfully. The questions we ask include - Is there interference with the brain's control of the healing process? What is the nature of this interference and can it be corrected with the NUCCA procedure? These are the questions that have driven my patients with spinal cord injuries to my office and these are the questions that are finding a positive answer for even this type of injury.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

A Chiropractic Miracle Story!



We see miracles every day at our Rockford Chiropractic office, but this is still one of the best stories about chiropractic.

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

I went to a different church a few weeks ago and met a friendly gentleman...
He introduced me to a professional woman whom he thought I should meet. When I met her, I was honestly baffled as to why he thought I should meet her, so I told her about myself. "I'm an upper cervical doctor," I started, and didn't get any further because she started crying. She told me about her neck, face and jaw pain and all the things she had been trying, without remedy. She told me that they were going to do an MRI of her neck in two days to see if a problem could be seen. I suggested that once the MRI is done, she come in for a second opinion.

Well, as it all turned out, she had a serious problem in the connection between the head and neck. It was creating a lot of tension in the temporal bone region, which not only serves as one foundation for the jaw, but also cradles the nerve centers that produce facial pain. The first adjustment went beautifully and over the last few weeks, the pain has been receding. I love it when the body can heal itself so easily. In this case the only interference was structural. She had not engaged in poisonous drug therapy which in other cases seems to have injected layers of complexity onto the case.

How long do you want to wait before finding out if 1st Step Chiropractic can help?

Speaking Of High School...

Speaking of High School, I adjusted my 9th grader last week since his nerve system was indicating chronic stress. With the NUCCA procedure, you can't feel the adjustment, so it's hard to tell anything happened, unless you have significant pain that vanishes. In his case, I've observed that he does his homework more easily when adjusted well, but I've always wondered what he experiences when he is in adjustment.

So this week I asked him, even though I know teenagers are, well, speech-challenged. Surprisingly enough, he said that although he still had some aching sensations around the body, he felt that his spine was balanced. I'm not sure which surprised me more, that he communicated, or that he could feel the balance in his spine. Maybe the spine helps the teenage problem too?

You know, it's never really soon enough to visit a Rockford Chiropractor and get the help you need...

Friday, February 13, 2009

If You Flunked High School Biology...

If you flunked high school biology, it would be easy to think that you cannot restore function to the legs or feet by correcting an out of position atlas, or C1 vertebra. Just look at the facts; the brain runs EVERYTHING in the body! I'm a real tester, and I like to see what the body can do when you give it a fighting chance. Today, I performed a first adjustment on someone whose fibula was so out of position it was causing terrible pain in the leg.

After delivering a full and complete adjustment to correct the atlas subluxation complex, I checked the fibula again and found that it was moving back into place, closing the gap in the abnormal separation between the tibia and fibula. After six years of testing, you'd think I wouldn't be surprised at this, but I've seen plently of fibulas that don't move when I adjust the atlas. Yes, there are other influences that can mess a person up. But think about this...if the brain can't get messages to the muscles to tell them how to behave , is that a bad thing?

Sunday, February 1, 2009

I Heard A Well Know Chiropractor Speak...

I heard a well know speaker last weekend propounding on his philosophy of chiropractic. His point was that Chiropractors only take care of the nerve system, removing the interference caused by bony misalignments. (the technical term is "subluxation"). He objected to Chiropractors talking about trying to get sick people well. Okay. That's one way to manage your perceptions. But to me, it seems a little coy, as though it's embarrassing to suggest that getting the pressure off nerves sets into motion healing processes that become the absence of symptoms. If the biology is there, why not say it? If there is a direct relation between subluxations and loss of health, and a direct relationship between removal of subluxations and the loss of symptoms, what's wrong with that. Isn't science about observing? Have you been to see our Rockford Chiropractic office?