QuestionI'll try to keep this short, but I want to include some history that may have relevancy to the issue. Over two years ago, I fell down a hill and hit my head/neck on a raised sidewalk. I passed out from the blow to my head and when I came to, I stood up slowly. A horrible pain shot through my left rib knocking the breath out of me and I fainted, hitting my head on the same sidewalk. I suffered a concussion immediately following, but seemed better within the next two-three days. It was an entire week later that I began to notice rapidly increasing head, neck, upper back, chest and shoulder tightness, pain and spasms. When my head would tighten, my ears would ring and cause very bad vertigo and my eyes experienced vision problems from large black spots to thousands of shooting stars. The muscle spasms in my upper body would trickle down into my legs and make me walk like a robot at times. I was in bad shape, and felt terrible all the time. Some days were better and some days were worse, but it was always very present even on a good day. This experience turned my life upside down.
I spent 2 years getting x-rays and MRI's of my upper body, and undergoing Chiropractic treatment and massage therapy for a whiplash type neck problem. During this time these treatments only gave a very temporary kind of semi-relief; a day at best of reduced discomfort. After about a year of this, my MD talked to my Chiropractor (who is very anti drugs) to discuss trying medications. My Chiropractor ended up talking me into it. I was on Anti-flamatories and Muscle relaxers for about a year. They helped a little, but not enough to risk staying on them.
I moved to Florida about 5 months ago and had to get a new Chiropractor. I hit a jackpot with the DC that I found. He did a series of strength and range of motion tests and determined that my pelvis and jaw were in worse condition than my neck. The first adjustment, he applied to my pelvis only (which he claimed was one of the worst he had seen). I was amazed that my neck felt better. After a few more pelvic adjustments over a month, he began to adjust my jaw. My neck felt even better. Two months later, once my pelvis and jaw were staying in place, he finally adjusted my neck in two places. Then over the next month, my pelvis and jaw stayed put and my neck only needed to be adjusted two more times at the occipital. He kept saying my head was on crooked and would line my head up to my fingers spread on my chest to know how much to adjust it.
I go in once a week to get checked, but have not needed any adjustments for two months. Thought nothing like before, I still have so many symptoms left. I have head/ neck/shoulder spasms, tightness. And I still have trouble with vertigo and vision problems. They are not as frequent or as severe, but why don't they go away completely if I'm keeping a good alignment?
I felt that I had to get a second opinion, so I went to my mother's DO, who also does adjustments. He looked at me and confirmed that my alignment was great. He said that he didn't know why I still had symptoms.
I also had to go to the dentist recently, who noticed the muscle tension in my jaw and neck and checked my TMJ. He said that he did not find a TMJ problem left, but the symptoms were still very evident. He too had no explanation for why these muscles are so haywire. I want to get some help, but don't know where to turn now! Do you have any advice? Have I just been damaged too long and now have an irreversible chronic issue? I can't afford to see a neurologist, go to a physical therapist, or have a bunch of nerve conduction tests done. Is there something I CAN do? Thank you for any response. I am getting very sad over the idea of feeling this way forever, and would rather hear only good things, but want an honest opinion either way.
AnswerDear Mary Gucci,
Thank you for your question about your injury situation. Yours is a question somewhat similar to those I have heard from others who are investigating chiropractic. Unfortunately, though, it is based on some misconceptions. In order to answer it properly, I'll first need to give you some background on the chiropractic profession.
There are two branches or schools of thought in chiropractic. Briefly, they are differentiated by whether they deal with the limited therapeutic approach for aches and pains (commonly termed "mixed" chiropractic because it represents a mixture of a chiropractor with a non-chiropractic matter) or a non-therapeutic approach to optimum body performance (termed "straight" chiropractic because there is no mixing of chiropractic with anything else). My expertise is in non-therapeutic straight chiropractic.
Therapeutic "mixed" chiropractic is the older approach based on a split from the founding principles of chiropractic about a century ago.
Non-therapeutic "straight" chiropractic is the more modern of the two. It deals with a particular, common situation called a vertebral subluxation. This is not the same as the injury findings you mention in your question, but they may exist together. It is important that you keep this in mind in that the information in this response concerns vertebral subluxation specifically, quite different from the matters you've detailed, including the geometric alignments addressed by the doctors you've seen so far. If you are not clear on the distinctions here, please be sure to write to me again as it is critical to you getting the most out of the information. Pay particular attention to the discussion later in this response about geometric alignment and vertebral subluxation.
The spine is made of many bone segments which house and protect the spinal cord and the smaller spinal nerve branches that come off the spinal cord and exit between the bones. These nerve pathways carry information or messages between the brain and the cells of the body. These messages are essential for the life of the cells. Without brain messages, the cells immediately begin the process of dying; i.e., they can no longer function the way they should to maintain life. Because the bones are moveable, they can misalign in such a way as to interfere with the messages and, ultimately, the ability of the person to function at their best or express their optimum potential. People with vertebral subluxations are not able to get all they can out of life.
Vertebral subluxations can be caused by a wide variety of factors, what we'll generally call stresses. These stresses can be physical (such as traumatic events like yours, but also things like sleeping posture and mattress condition, the birth process, sneezing, falling down, etc.), mental / emotional (in its many forms, probably the most familiar use of the word stress), or chemical (such as pollution, drugs, etc.), which are, unfortunately, regular parts of daily living for all age groups. In short, a vertebral subluxation can occur for a multitude of reasons.
Tragically, vertebral subluxations are rarely obvious to the individual they affect. They usually have no symptoms. The reason is that most of what goes on inside you happens without your awareness. As an example, try to "feel" your liver. What's it doing right now? You can't know, so you can't know if it's functioning at its best or something less. To complicate things, nerve pathways that carry messages of control (termed "motor" nerves) have no way of transmitting ache or pain messages, so your body function may be far from perfect and you'd not have any alerting signal whatsoever. Perhaps of more use to you, the branching of the nerve pathways is quite complex and extensive, making it exceedingly difficult to predict or determine exactly how the person will be affected. The question of how your individual body carries out the myriad of activities just to maintain life is enormous and would require your Creator's (or creator's, for the agnostic) knowledge, or at least far more than our educated knowledge of the complexities of life.
Now that you have more information about the body and vertebral subluxation, how do you make use of it? Well, first understand that this is not an explanation of the exact nature of your injury or how to treat it. Are there reasons for the various unwanted things you are experiencing? Even though they may be beyond our ability to identify, of course, there are; but pinning them down is not relevant to the matter of whether you would benefit from being free of vertebral subluxations, whether they resulted from an injury event or any other of the many different opportunities that come from daily living. Vertebral subluxation is, in and of itself, detrimental to life.
The only way to know if someone has a vertebral subluxation is to have that person's spine checked by a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor using a method of "analysis." When a vertebral subluxation is detected this way, it is obviously important to correct it as soon as possible. The term for this procedure is 揳djustment?and, although you use this term in your question, it is apparent that it is not the equivalent of what you experienced. This doesn't mean that what you've done has been wrong ?I'm glad for you that you have been so satisfied with it! - it's just different from what we're addressing here and for quite different purposes.
In discussing vertebral subluxation earlier in this message, I used the word misalignment. I am not talking here about head, pelvis or jaw alignment or osteopathic alignment or even neck geometry, however, and it these are not interchangeable with the term vertebral subluxation. The misalignment that I address is that of a specific segment of the spine. Technically speaking, we have to get even a bit more advanced in what is meant by misalignment to make this clear. The question is, Misaligned with respect to what? It is possible to describe the body geometrically, reasoning that we are bilaterally symmetrical and concluding that there is a measurable 搈idline?or that our hips and shoulders should be 揵alanced?on a perpendicular line to this proposed 搈idline?or that the body can be presumed to take on a certain geometry in other planes as well. The problem with this thinking is that it assumes we are simply machines and ignores that we are alive, capable of movement, adaptation, growth, etc. At any given moment, there is an optimum state for us to carry out life to our best abilities. That optimum state will vary depending upon the circumstances, both within us and of our environment. There are many examples to illustrate this. If you carry something heavy with one hand, you must lean away from it, putting something of a curve into the spine, to keep yourself balanced. Does that mean the body is failing because there is imbalance or a curve, or is it instead being quite successful in adapting you to the situation? In another example, consider that those who argue for geometric balance or symmetry would be hard-pressed to explain why the carpenter who swings a 28-ounce hammer all day with his right arm only would have certain physical adaptations that favor his right side. Should the carpenter have some of the tissue removed from his arm, hand and back so that it is equal to that on the left? Or is he merely adapted to his circumstances? The point I'm getting at is that there is an individually determined, innately normal position for the body that cannot be described by geometry. From the non-therapeutic standpoint, then, an adjustment is not a process with the goal of straightening a body alignment. As I said, bad body alignment and vertebral subluxation are not interchangeable terms.
Since vertebral subluxations are caused by so many different things, people choose to go to a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor on a regular basis to enjoy the most time free of the life-robbing effects of vertebral subluxation. There's a saying that straight chiropractic is not about your back, it's not about your pain, it's about your life. Each person has a unique potential in life. With vertebral subluxation, it's impossible to realize that potential.
A key question to ask for your purposes, then, would be, Is someone who has been injured better off with vertebral subluxation / nerve interference or free of subluxation / with the nerve channels open? It is easy to see that having all the available nerve messages getting through is better than only some of them getting through, regardless of the person's situation otherwise. So, having one's spine checked for vertebral subluxation is tremendously important, but it's not for the purpose of dealing with injury-related symptoms or body alignment. In other words, non-therapeutic straight chiropractic can be of benefit to any spine-owner, but perhaps in ways that you may not have considered. It's not that you should see a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor FOR your injury ?you should visit one in an effort to be free of vertebral subluxations, even WITH such matters in your history. Non-therapeutic straight chiropractic is not about diagnosing and/or treating injuries or symptoms that follow injuries or any therapeutic-model or medical condition. It is entirely separate in its goal.
As I mentioned earlier, not all chiropractors adhere to this and it is important that you be able to distinguish which ones do if you're going to seek this type of service. You need to understand very clearly that the practice objectives of therapeutic mixed chiropractic and non-therapeutic straight chiropractic are quite different, as described above. What information I give you must not be interpreted from the mixed viewpoint.
It would certainly be wise to have your spine checked for subluxations by a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor, even if you still elect to have therapeutic attention for your reported injury-related concerns. Remember, the two objectives are not the same.
If you are interested in finding out how to locate a non-therapeutic straight chiropractor in your area, please contact me at this site again or at
[email protected].
Mary, I wish you the best in understanding what non-therapeutic straight chiropractic has to offer. It has been my pleasure to provide you with some information.
Sincerely,
James W. Healey, D.C.
