Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Back Pain in Rockford

When people come to me for help, I accept only those patients who I know I can help. The main set of criteria that tells me I can help include the presence of the atlas subluxation complex. So what's that?
The atlas subluxation complex is a big problem that happens when someone has their head knocked crooked. Essentially, it's the "head not on straight" problem. Some people are even told by the medical doctor that, "it's all in your head."
And, well, it is, because the head isn't on straight and that squeezes the brain and plugs up the blood flow and reduces the ability of the body to heal.
So does that fix back pain? It depends...
Look at this article I found from 1960. These researchers were trying to reduce the incidence of Hepatitis occurring in patients receiving blood transfusions. The obvious problem is that sick people were giving blood.
One of the most useful statements in this paper states, "lesions in the liver have been found to manifest electro-dermal points on the dermatomes coresponding to the spinal segments D3-D12, especially D7-D9."
That means the upper back is going to get pain and measurable changes in blood flow to the skin, causing "dead zones" of skin that show abnormal electrical flow. And that is all caused by a disease such as Hepatitis.
That means that correcting the atlas subluxation complex will lift the body's ability to heal, balancing the spine and eliminating muscle spasms, but it won't make the Hepatitis go away and it won't make the Hepatitis-caused back problems go away either. But what do you think the first step would be in bringing the healing process into play? Do you want the whole system to heal, or do you want just the Hepatitis to vanish? Do you want just good enough, or do you want to reach the top?
If the first step is correcting the atlas subluxation complex, what is the second step and third step? Well, if there is Hepatitis involved, that's not too hard, if the brain is back in control of the body's healing system. But that's for another day...
Oh, and by the way, they figured it out and screened out people who had bad thermal scans in the region of the spine running the liver, and were able to drastically cut the incidence of post-infusion hepatitis. (Naito, Morisue, 1960)

Friday, January 22, 2010

Hope for Illness in Rockford Illinois

The Big Question is..."What are we doing and why do diseases such as fibromyalgia, optic neuritis, congestive heart failure and pain respond to this type of care?" Ponder the info and discuss the events producing improved health. One thing to keep in mind is that the answer is rooted in High School Biology.


Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Attention Deficit Disorder

Expensive instrumentation is the hallmark of Academia, but we love it. How else can you show objective data that confirms improved brain function? The first case described here of attention deficit disorder has a couple of interesting points; the initial injury was probably a birth injury caused by forceps or harsh twisting of the neck, although any childhood injury could have done it; the RAND 36 study showed a gradual improvement to 100% in all eight health categories measured. That is beyond the national average! The NUCCA world is the only branch of chiropractic that has been using this Medicare-developed measurement tool.

Moral of the story; birth injury is real and attention deficit disorders can vanish without drugs. Have your children checked by a Rockford Chiropractor as soon as possible to make sure there is no injury festering there.

The second study is of a young lady with bipolar disorder. She gets better. (I wish Dr. Dickholtz hadn't squeezed all of this into one video, it gets overwhelming). Moral of the story; it's so exciting to do this work that you lose a sense of proportion as the immensity of the need by society becomes apparent.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Help for Chiari Malformation

This discussion of a succesful and complicated case may confuse the layman unfamiliar with spinal anatomy, but it does give a good idea of the detailed care that we give each case, no matter how complex. The goal is to remove pressure at the base of the brain, which for the vertebrate is a very important thing. I mean, the French pretty well proved that the head is important by showing that 100% of their attempts at altering a person's politics during the French revolution resulted in a dead body - separating the head from the body is fatal for animals with spines.

In this video, we see that Shirley's head was not on her neck straight. Three degrees translates to about two and a half millimeters of linear displacement. That's about twice what most people suffer with. Her symptoms were bad, and she truly had "Chiari Malformation," which was symptomatic with the atlas subluxation complex present. Remove the atlas subluxation complex and you have no problem with the unique structure. Shirley got her head on straight!

Interesting case!

Monday, January 4, 2010

Help for High Blood Pressure

Here is one of my mentors, Dr. Dickholtz, who was the adjusting doctor in the famous high blood pressure study done at Rush University Hypertension Center. When the announcer mentions that Dr. Dickholtz only adjusts the atlas at the top of the neck, you might think it is just a single segment that is being worked...

Actually, the atlas in relation to the skull, the second cervical vertebra and the entire neck below are figured into the equation. The goal is to correct a misalignment complex involving an entire system, and do it with one adjusting vector. So there's some fancy physics involved determined by radiographs of the upper cervical spine.

It's a good, concise video. And if you live in the Rockford, Il area, you don't have to go far to find this exact type of work!

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Upper Cervical Adjusting: What Happens?

Many of my patients wonder what is happening during the adjustment. They cannot feel anything and yet, their family member watching observes me working hard and tensing my shoulders and getting out of breath.
The NUCCA adjustment involves a complex lever system. This system includes the doctor's foot, hip and back (constituting the first lever) and the upper back, shoulder and wrist (constituting the second lever). Each of these levers contains a point of resistance, a fulcrum and a force. You might be able to see that the hip is one fulcrum, the shoulder joint is the other fulcrum.
That's not all, because the patients' atlas is another part of the lever system. It continues into the relation between the patients' skull, the headpiece of the table, and the neck - and it's all part of the lever system!
Now that everyone's sleeping...
If we have taken the films correctly and analyzed the films correctly, all that needs to be done is adjust the patient correctly. It will not take much force to move the atlas back into position if everything is set up correctly and the lever system is moving from the right plane.
So you cannot feel the adjustment because the entire system is moving in the right direction just a little bit, about 3/4 of a millimeter on average, and up to 2 millimeters in the worst cases.
Once that is done, the body can begin healing from all kinds of problems, including speech impediments, pain syndromes, poor posture, and many others.

Saturday, January 2, 2010

Hope for Posture

One of the enjoyable moments in the study of anatomy and physiology is discovering that there are nerves in the spinal joints that carry information to the brain about where you are in space. That's how you know what to do when you slip on the ice - all that flailing around is your brain's rapid processing of where you are in space and how to keep you from a punishing meeting with the planet.
But what if those joints are in abnormal alignment? Do the signals transmit wrong information?
That is one of the theories describing why upper cervical care works. The cervical spine of the neck is where you will find the greatest concentration of these receptor nerves. Does that suggest the neck is an important part of your brain's processing? If you were a factory, would that neck represent the office staff that is giving you updates on all aspects of the operation?
Each spinal segment has an axis of rotation that is altered when the spine is out of balance. This alteration causes abnormal pressures out on the joints at the edge, the facet joints, where the proprioceptor nerves live. Not only does this abnormal pressure alter the nerve signal, but it also creates conditions favorable for osteoarthritis, technically called the piezoelectric effect, in which calcium is attracted to the site of pressure.
In summary, it is not only important for spinal health, but it is also important for postural health to have a balanced spine.