A subluxation, or misalignment as defined in Upper Cervical Chiropractic, is a bone at the top of the neck that is out of alignment with the one above and below, closing the canal, causing nerve pressure, and reducing brain to body communication.
The nervous system controls every function in your body. It controls your immune system, emotions, vision, hearing, balance, breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, muscle tension, posture, hormones, and every other function. Nerve impulses or messages travel from the brain to every part of your body via the brainstem, which starts at the base of your skull and passes through the top two bones.
The Atlas and Axis bones are unlike any other bones in your spine. They have no interlocking joints, allowing them to turn your head left/right and up/down. Because of their range of motion, these bones are at a much higher risk to become subluxated or misaligned.
This inhibits proper communication from brain to body and causes health conditions to develop. The goal of an upper cervical doctors is to properly align the top two bones in your neck. When these two bones are aligned, your brain can effectively communicate with your body to achieve optimal function and restore health.
When an upper cervical correction is performed properly, the alignment becomes stable and holds in place, allowing the body to begin the healing process. As your alignment holds, your body becomes healthier and stronger, and the need for corrections and check-ups decreases.
However, if a patient becomes subluxated and nothing is done to correct it, the opposite occurs: your body slows or even stops healing. This is when symptoms and health conditions begin to reappear or redevelop.
Everyone, from infants to seniors, mothers-to-be, athletes, and accident victims will benefit from a healthy spine and nerve system! If you currently suffer from a health condition, an upper cervical doctors will strive to correct its cause, not just treat the symptoms.
That is ideally what we are trying to achieve. However, it is extremely rare that anyone needs just one adjustment that resolves all of their health problems. We all like instant results, but the human body does not work that way.
If you cut your finger and cover it with a band-aid, the band-aid does not fix the cut. When muscles, ligaments and nerves have been damaged, they take time to heal. The good news is that no matter your age, your body never forgets how to heal itself. All it needs is the time and opportunity to do so.
As your body heals, the important thing is that the adjustment holds. I often use the expression that, “The adjustment is holding,” which means that a joint is staying in the correct position. There are 3 reasons that an adjustment may not hold right away.
Your muscles/ligaments get weak. They are not strong enough to keep the vertebra where it should be. Your nerves are resistant to change (aka muscle memory). Your body must unlearn bad habits. Life goes on. By doing the same things that caused the vertebra to misalign in the first place (eg sleeping the wrong way, working and driving too much, etc), your body will take longer to heal. As your body heals, generally your adjustment holds longer. And the longer the adjustment holds, the better!
There are three possibilities that follow a chiropractic adjustment:
There is no simple answer to this question. However, there are three guidelines or Rules of Healing that may give you some idea how long it may take and how much work may be required.
You may some degree of improvement within 6 weeks of starting care.
Like going on a diet or starting an exercise program, you don’t lose 10Kg in just a couple of days. Even at the end of 6 weeks it does not mean that things will be 100% perfect. Much of it depends how well you are able to do the necessary things so that your body can heal. Certainly, I prefer rapid change myself. However, the fact is that change happens one step at a time. There are no shortcuts. Chiropractic is not a cure for any disease or ailment. It is an approach to promote health and proper body functioning.
It can take your body extra time to recover if you have had a long term underlying condition.
There is a difference between symptom relief and healing. Symptoms can subside quickly. Tissue repair and healing usually takes longer. This rule is true even if the underlying condition (ie, spinal misalignment) has not been causing you any grief previously. In fact, people can suffer an injury 10-15 years prior to the onset of any major problems.
It is impossible to know how long your first adjustment will stay.
For this reason, it is important when starting care to keep a close eye to monitor how you respond to your adjustments. Let me be clear: I do not like keeping anyone on a high-intensity schedule of care for long at all. As soon as you notice an improvement and it it clear that your adjustment is holding, we can reduce the frequency of your checkups. I will always give you my best recommendation of care. However, I never want you (or anyone else) to ever feel pushed into accepting any more care than is comfortable for you. We will always do things one step at a time at a pace that is comfortable for you.
After graduating from general chiropractic college, Upper Cervical doctors continue post-graduate training in upper cervical care. This includes advanced studies in anatomy, neurology, biomechanics, radiology, instrumentation, and corrective procedures specific to the upper cervical spine. Because the field requires such rigorous training, there are only ~900 doctors in the world certified to provide upper cervical care.
Upper Cervical is different from traditional medicine, physical therapy, and general chiropractic. Upper cervical doctors use precise and objective spinographs or X-rays of the head and neck. Measurements are taken, and an analysis is made to determine exactly how the top vertebrae are misaligned and what the appropriate course of action needs to be.
Traditional medicine prescribes drugs or performs surgeries. Physical therapy uses a wide array of modalities, stretching and strengthening. General chiropractic utilises a variety of manipulations to increase the range of motion within the spine. Make no mistake: these healing arts help millions of people each year! Nevertheless, many people are turning to upper cervical care if the customary approaches aren’t working as we hope.
Upper Cervical care uses 80 years of clinical research, precision X-rays, mathematical measurements, spinal analysis and pre/post objective instrumentation to determine how to adjust misalignments of the upper neck … and to know when we’ve been able to do so. The intent of upper cervical care is not to make a correction every visit but rather to make a correction and have it hold for an extended period of time, thus allowing the body to heal itself. We emphasize prevention rather than the treatment of disease.
We focus on holistic wellness that addresses the root causes of chronic conditions like vertigo and migraines.
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