In your words, what brought you in for care?

I seem to have injured my neck in August and it was uncomfortable. My regular chiropractor was not improving it, so I decided to come here.

What has changed since you first started upper cervical care here?

My neck seems stronger. Usually there is no pain. I’m not sure if my elbow and knee pain are improved permanently, but they seem to be better too.

What has been the most surprising thing about your experience under NUCCA chiropractic care?

The adjustments don’t seem strong enough to change things…But they do!

-Jean in Ames, Iowa

Editor’s note: This guest post from Dr. Ian Bulow, Upper Cervical Doctor in Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania. You can read more about Dr. Bulow and his practice here.

I started taking care of a little boy in the office last week. We will call him “Johnny” for the time being.

Johnny is 7 years old. To see him in the car next to you, you would think nothing of him. But to KNOW what he has been through is a different story.

Johnny came in to our office because a true friend of his mother told her to bring him in.

Johnny gets seizures.

I wonder what that must feel like for him not to have control of his body from time to time (20+ times a day when he first came in to my office.) I wonder what it must be like for a parent not to have control of their child. Not to be able to HELP them when they want to the most.

Maybe I don’t wonder about such things…why would I want to?

So now let me wonder about better things.

Johnny is doing much better now.

His mother took the advice of her true friend and brought Johnny in for an UPPER CERVICAL evaluation. Sure enough, Johnny has a lot of stress in the area of his brain stem. (He should. He was dropped on his head only a couple months before the seizures started, in addition to having a c-section birth).

One SPECIFIC UPPER CERVICAL ADJUSTMENT and Johnny is doing better than he has in MONTHS, and to date he is continuing to stabilize.

Now, who is to blame? An easy question to ask, but the wrong question for such a time. So, lets try again: Who is to thank?

Me? I don’t think so. I simply move the bone, God’s design does the healing. So let’s thank Him first.

Johnny’s mom? Without a question! In fact Johnny’s mom was told NOT to bring her in to my office by Johnny’s  primary care provider. But she did what she KNEW IN HER HEART was the right thing to do: SOMETHING DIFFERENT! (If you want a change in your life then guess what? Something has to CHANGE)

How about the friend of Johnny’s mom? Where would Johnny be today had his mother’s friend not shared what she KNEW about Upper Cervical Care? I dare not wonder such things.

Moral of today’s story:

I want to thank each and every one of you who has made a DIFFERENCE in the lives around you by letting them know about Upper Cervical health care. God does not NEED Upper Cervical doctors to get sick people well, but we sure like being used by Him from time to time. Please give me that gift this year. Please allow me to check those in your life that you feel need a second opinion, need some hope, need their health to be RESTORED.

I pray that you had a safe and wonderful New Year celebration. I pray that you are so incredibly blessed this year that you have no choice but to thank the Lord in everything you do.

God Bless,

Ian

Thanks to Dr. Ian for letting me share this story with you.

Mary did the standard things her doctors told her to do, and went through a bunch of different headache medicines. None of them seemed to work. And the side effects weren’t helpful. So, after living with persistent daily headaches for years, she finally took matters into her own hands and took a chance on upper cervical chiropractic care.

And I’m glad she did. After several minutes of just looking at her posture, I could tell she was misaligned between the head and neck.

Click to listen to her story. Or read the transcript below.

I’ve really noticed headaches since probably early teens, for the most part. Noticing them everyday, definitely. Saw a few doctors in my hometown who were just like, “Hey, it’s headaches. Not much we can do about it.” So I was taking a lot of Excedrin, basically everyday, probably more than you should. So it’s good I’ve gotten away from that.

But also went to a couple of doctors in Iowa City, at the university, who’ve done MRIs, CAT scans, all kinds of tests like that…blood tests. Just to make sure there’s no tumors or anything , because they couldn’t figure anything out.

Until I found you.

It’s hard. Because a lot people really don’t have headaches that often. Maybe once a month or something like that. They really don’t understand what it’s like to have them every single day, and basically all day. It’s something really different for me not to have headaches, since I was having them everyday.

Until I came here I didn’t know what it was like to not have a headache for a day. It’s definitely been a drastic improvement. I haven’t’ really met a people who’ve had the same kind of problem.

The most surprising thing to me is that I’m holding the alignment so well for right now. It’s been, what, a month about, since the last adjustment, and I’ve been still headache free since then. Which is really good. And I was also just surprised after the first alignment, the next day, when I didn’t have a headache at all. It was really amazing to have that feeling of not having the pain. So that was definitely really surprising. I wasn’t sure how it was going to work, how quickly it would work. That was the biggest, best part for me.

It was good Mary  got all of that testing to rule out the tumors and other brain abnormalities. But, at the end of the day, she still had the headaches. And still suffered for years without anyone even thinking of recommending that she “get her head on straight” with our unique upper cervical protocol. The University of Iowa has all the advanced diagnostic imaging you can imagine. But they still don’t know the postural signs of an upper cervical misalignment.

Right now only consulting with an upper cervical chiropractor is the best way to know for sure if you might benefit from upper cervical chiropractic care.

Call the office to set up your complimentary consultation with the doctor and experience a completely new way of looking at the body. (515) 233-1623

If you’re out of the central Iowa area, email me and I’ll try to connect you with a doctor in your area. drzward at fastmail dot fm.

Thank you to Candy for allowing me to share her story so that others might know that a drug-free, surgery-free way is available.

BEFORE

I had severe muscle spasms in my neck. To the point to where it was just debilitating. I could do nothing but lay flat and hope there was no jar or movement. And when the actual spasm would go away: loss of range of motion, tenderness, continued pain that would be intermittent, stiffness in my shoulders, and between my should blades, and that stiffness would radiate on down to my lower back and my legs.

NOW

…I feel like a new woman. I’ve got really good range of motion in my neck. And all the shoulder pain is gone. The pain between my shoulder blades is gone. My lower back feels a lot less rigid, and my legs seem to be much more limber than they were before.

I sleep better because I don’t have the neck pain associated with laying my head on the pillow. And I just feel like I can function so much better.

…You can come in feeling rotten and leave feeling like you’ve got the world licked…

The surprising thing to me is how gentle the treatment is, and how much benefit you have. I come in with one leg significantly shorter than the other, and then after a few minutes, I’m all even with world again. And everything is level and my muscles are functioning correctly. The pain is gone. I just cannot believe that for the short amount of time that I need to spend here, and for as gentle the treatment is, that I get that much benefit.

If you are suffering and haven’t found the answer that you’re looking for, consider the possibility that upper cervical care might be that answer. Please see my “Am I candidate for NUCCA care?” answer sheet, or call the office to set up your complimentary consultation with the doctor and experience a completely new way of looking at the body. (515)-233-1623

If you’re out of the central Iowa area, email me and I’ll try to connect you with a doctor in your area. drzward at fastmail dot fm.

Trigeminal Neuralgia is the #1 cause of facial pain, with 4 to 5 persons per 100,000 having the disease. Some authorities say that more might be suffering, but aren’t counted because of misdiagnosis.

According to the National Pain Foundation, 1.7 millions have been diagnosed with Trigeminal Neuralgia. TN’s reputation as one of the most severe body pains makes that 1.7 million too many. In many cases TN grows to be a debilitating and chronic pain that threatens the livelihood of the one who suffers with it.

Listen to the story of one man who had TN below, from his interview at Ward Chiropractic Group, in Ames, Iowa.

In the past TN has been called Tic douloureux, and also the suicide disease, because the suffering it causes some patients drove them to take their life. Modern medicine has improved pain management through drugs and surgical procedures, and takes credit for reducing TN’s deadly reputation.

Yet, medicines don’t always work, and the idea of a cranial surgery can be too expensive, or downright scary for many. Some choose to seek help from alternative treatments. Indeed, popular web sources like Mayo.com list some of those therapies, like acupuncture, biofeedback, and vitamin therapy.

Still, there is one glaring omission of what might help TN. Upper cervical chiropractic care.

There are several theories on what causes, or possibly exacerbates the symptoms of facial nerve pain. The most popular is a mechanical explanation: there is pressure on the facial nerve, inside the skull, most likely cause by a blood vessel. Pain then occurs with little or no warning, often just with moving the head, eating, or touching the face.

It’s thought that the pressure actually occurs at the base of the brain stem, where the roots of the facial nerve are.

What’s interesting about the facial nerve is that it’s not just found at the brain stem. There are actually cell extensions of the facial nerve which descend down into the spinal cord to the level of our second cervical vertebra. So, reach back to just about the back of your hair line, at the back of your neck. You have cells hooked up to the trigeminal nerve which are nestled less than a few inches  away from your finger.

If there was a doctor who could do a surgery and take away small amounts of pressure at the top of the spinal cord, in between the second vertebra and the bottom of the head, do you think it might relieve the pressure on the facial nerve?

Now what if that doctor wasn’t doing surgery, but was gently improving the balance between the head and neck? Balance that affects nerve pressure and blood flow into the brain stem. Would you think that might relieve pressure on the facial nerve?

And what if I told you that non-surgical doctor was a chiropractor, practicing upper cervical chiropractic?

Upper cervical chiropractic worked for one TN patient of an upper cervical doctor in St. Louis. And it did for James Tomasi, who you can read about here, or listen to his story in the recording above. I have personally  seen improvement in facial pain in 3 different patients in the last 45 days.

So, why haven’t you heard about this before? Good question. Here’s one answer: when you search the current National Institute of Heath’s clinical trials, there are only 3 TN studies. And not one of them is examining Trigeminal Neuralgia and chiropractic care. There is very little funding for chiropractic research period, let alone research into a non-back-pain related condition.

Here’s a second answer:  Mayo and other authorities are  comfortable reporting on the potential of acupuncture, vitamins, and biofeedback, because it’s not chiropractic. You simply haven’t heard about Trigeminal Neuralgia and chiropractic care because of bias.

And it’s not just limited to facial pain, but other chronic pains as well. Thankfully patient advocacy groups like the Facial Pain Association are willing to tell others about facial pain and upper cervical chiropractic.

A woman came for NUCCA care after hearing that Upper Cervical Chiropractic is effective as a headache treatment. While I told her that people with headaches often respond wonderfully to NUCCA care, Upper Cervical Care is not a treatment for headache.

It’s a treatment for a head to neck imbalance that may be limiting the body’s ability to heal its own headaches. I can correct her imbalance. But I’m not going to cure her headaches.

Only the body cures.

After suffering with headaches for years, often on strong, multiple doses of over the counter pain killers, she was ready to see what her body could do under NUCCA care. And so was I.

Above are her x-rays. Notice how her head is leaning quite a bit to her right in the x-ray on the left. I had her stand in front of a mirror so she could see it as well. And she did. Not surprisingly this head tilt showed up in her x-ray. And I could see that her head and her neck were creating a kink on her right side. This was placing pressure on muscles and ligaments for sure. But also potentially placing pressure on blood vessels and nerves going into her head.

I made a gentle correction based on what I measured from the x-ray. Then I measured again after the adjustment. That’s the x-ray on the right. Can you see the improvement. Her head is only leaning half as much.

But, I wasn’t happy yet. With this new information, I lowered my approach and we made another correction. You didn’t need an x-ray to see that change. She noticed that when she looked in the mirror, her head was on straight. She couldn’t believe that she had lived with head tilt all her life.

And the best part: her headaches went away after the first visit. Even the bad ones she would have with her cycle. And months later, they’ve stayed away.

Do you suffer from headaches and live in Central Iowa? Then why not see if NUCCA care helps? Call the office at 515-233-1623.

Please click to listen.

Carol’s story is unique, but welcome. Instead of waiting for her body to break down in order to treat an illness, she sees her health as an investment.

She seeks proper rest, nutrition, and now body alignment through the NUCCA upper cervical procedure. Carol doesn’t have a miracle story about upper cervical care, because she doesn’t need one.

She was already feeling healthy to begin with. But with NUCCA she believes things have gotten even better.

As a NUCCA doctor, my major focus is on documenting a practice member’s posture, and helping them improve that posture and their health by gently balancing the head with the rest of the body.

When I first examined Carol, I saw that one of her shoulders was more forward than the other, indicating a twisting in her body framework that placed more strain on her upper body. Stress she often feels at work. Her upper body was pointing one direction while her pelvis was pointing in a slightly different direction.

After one adjustment, the shoulders relaxed and her arms hung equally at her sides. It was a change that Carol and I could see immediately. Over the last 2 months Carol has needed only a few  upper cervical adjustments. Now her new alignment is stabilized, and on her next visit she’ll be released from regular care.

After that, Carol will monitor her own posture and come into the office to have her alignment checked a couple times a year.

I’m proud of Carol for recognizing that upper cervical care can be preventative care.