Editor’s note: Dr. Johnathan Oliver is a friend and a colleague practicing in the Grandview Heights area of Columbus, Ohio. This is taken from his practice website, where he tells about his whole family’s experience with upper cervical chiropractic care.

My daughter story, though, is the real miracle in my opinion. She has had severe eczema and allergic dermatitis. At times her whole body has been covered in a rash. This all started at about 4 months old.

(Even before her first rash, my wife and I noticed that she was always restless; never once sleeping through the night in those four months, and requiring us to walk with her for an hour each night before she would sleep.)

Baby with eczema

We tried every cream we could find–as many as 50 different creams, oils, and lotions just to give her relief. Many would make her rashes worse, and even burn. We noticed that the creams with mineral oil, lanolin and other additives made her react the worst. The disturbing thing is the fact that most were labeled “for eczema”. The rash was so bad that she would scratch until she bleed on her hands, the creases of her arms, and the back of her legs. Our pediatrician recommended we see a dermatologist.

The dermatologist was a very kind man and said that is was one of the worse cases he had ever seen. He recommended steroid cream due to the risk of infection. He gave us one of the strongest steroids he could, one made for adults. He thought it would be the only thing that might help. We tried it, and it did help…for a little while.But her skin would always flare back up right after use.

We were then sent to a specialist in allergic conditions. My daughter’s skin was so bad that they could not do any testing. So they recommend 12 days of Prednisone to clear up the skin…enough to do the test. Once again it worked a little while, but as soon as we slowed the Prednisone down, it flared back up.

We tried everything but nothing helped. We started giving her a bath ever single night in slightly cool water because luke-warm water would hurt her. She would cry many times when first getting in, due to her rash. Immediately after the bath we would put on Vaseline to help seal in some moisture. At times, I would wrap her wounds with cotton cloth coated with Vaseline so she could get a few hours rest. We tried every elimination diet possible, except the water only diet.

It came down to the last straw when my daughter had a deadly allergic reaction to peanuts. She ate a natural protein bar, which had nuts in, and began swelling up. Her airway was threatened. We took her to the E.R. and they gave her a shot of epinephrine. We still an epi-junior with with us to this day. Not long after she started having wheezing, a sign associated with asthma. And this was it… I knew something different had to happen.

The same day she started wheezing we drove 16 hours to Florida, only stopping for gas and food. We took her to see a pediatric upper cervical doctor, who practices the gentle, precise technique of Orthospinology. [Ed.'s note: this technique is similar to NUCCA.]

And after her first adjustment we went to the hotel and she slept through the night. This was the first time that I could remember her sleeping so long without scratching. Amazingly, she has not needed any more steroids since that day. Or Vaseline, or any other other creams, or lotions. She has only had fits of wheezing three times. We still do not eat wheat, but avoiding wheat only helped after her atlas (first bone in the neck) was adjusted.

Upper cervical care has given us our daughter back . And she is happy and healthy.

Christmas Wish #1:  More doctors like Dr. Bruce Bell.

A couple of decades ago, upper cervical chiropractic care  wasn’t on the radar of Dr. Bruce Bell, a family practice physician in the suburbs of Chicago.

Being a guy who loved his patients and science, he began to notice a trend among his patient population: some of them saw improvements in health status after receiving chiropractic care. He investigated it and discovered the NUCCA upper cervical approach to spinal balance.

That began a personal investigation into upper cervical chiropractic care. And over several years, Dr. Bell sent thousands of referrals to an upper cervical doctor, Dr. Marshall Dichholtz, Sr. of Chicago, Illinois.

The fruits of the Bell and Dickholtz working relationship weren’t just limited to happier patients. Dr. Bell insisted on trying to document some of the changes that he saw in his patients, and began the long task of trying to form a research investigation into NUCCA.

That investigation ended in the very groundbreaking pilot study on upper cervical care and hypertension featured in the Journal of Human Hypertension. In that pilot study it was shown there was a strong association between NUCCA upper cervical care and the reduction of blood pressure in high blood pressure patients.

Now the National Institutes of Health is funding another study to see if these findings can be reproduced among a larger patient population. And thousands of patients are discovering chiropractic care.

All of this wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for Dr. Bruce Bell, who stepped outside his experience, and found good things were happening for his patients under upper cervical care.

Christmas Wish #2: More money for chiropractic research

Right now the Upper Cervical Research Foundation is researching the relationship between the upper cervical spine, and a number of conditions which cause human suffering. And they aren’t the only ones. A number of chiropractic colleges have strong, award winning research departments, whose studies have been instrumental in expanding our understanding about the human body. And the relationship between our health and health of the spine.

But it wasn’t until as recently as 1998 that chiropractic institutions began to get significant funding from the National Institutes of Health. Right now those funding dollars add up to several millions of dollars a year, often spread out over many projects.

Compared to several decades ago, things are better than they were. But compared to the tens of billions of dollars the federal government gives medical institutions for research, per year, the amount is almost insignificant.

There are now many studies which support the inclusion of chiropractic care for a limited number of health conditions. Far more than there were 4o years ago. But for the public and the health care system to benefit from chiropractic care, we need to be able to show how and why we help.

We can’t do that without more research money.

Christmas Wish #3: More children under upper cervical chiropractic care

“I wish I would have tried this 30 years ago,” is a common phrase heard in my office, and the office of other chiropractors.

My response, though I don’t always say it, is:  ” No, someone should have checked you right after birth.”

Now, not every baby has a difficult birth. And many of our modern birthing methods can save the lives of seriously threatened infants. Yet, they can also place a lot of stress on the upper cervical spine of infants as they move through the birth canal. A process that already places stress on the child’s head and neck.

As a result of this stress, many children come into the world with their bodies out of balance, and they show evidence of it as they grow. For many this shows up as inability or refusal to nurse on one side, a distorted sleep posture (c-shaped bent to the side), stronger motor development on one side of the body than the other, and colicky symptoms.

This imbalance may have other implications for the health and development of the child, as detailed in this article: Manual Therapy in Children.

I can tell you from personal experience, that each of my children has only received a handful of adjustments, they tend to maintain their alignment for a long time, and don’t experience the health problems that plague their playmates, like colic, headaches, and ear infections.

Perhaps if more parents were willing to actually see if their child’s “head was on straight” we might be able to avoid some of the more serious,  problems that bring people to the doctor later on in life.

Thank you for reading my Christmas wish list! Here’s how you can make each of these wishes come true:

1. If you’re a chiropractic patient who’s seen major improvements in health since starting chiropractic care, share those changes with your primary care physician. They deserve to know what you’re doing.
2. If you’d like to have more groundbreaking chiropractic research, consider become a donating sponsor of the Upper Cervical Research Foundation. This is where you can donate.
3. If you’re a parent with a child who has health challenges, consider the possibility that your child’s spinal alignment has a role to play in their health maintenance and healthy development. And get your child to a chiropractor.

Have a blessed Holiday!

I was recently interviewed for The Atlas of Life blog. (You can find that interview here.) Less than a year old, it has joined UpCSpine.com (and a few others) as a place where people are learning about the benefits of Upper Cervical Care.

Because of that interview, an Upper Cervical Patient in St. Louis found me and contacted me, and this is what he said:

Your analysis and thoughtfulness of how Upper Cervical should be the FIRST intervention before reacting to the symtoms and working with other health professional to this end is exactly what I think should be happening. Keep up the great work!!

Of course, that made me feel good. I love interacting with Upper Cervical patients (I’m one too!) and hearing their stories.  I love the passion that many of them hold for Upper Cervical Care! They know they have found a good thing, and want to tell the world about it.

So, if you’re an Upper Cervical Patient reading this, no matter how you got here, let me ask you one more time:

Keep telling your Upper Cervical story. It’s only because of your involvement that Upper Cervical Care has gotten the attention it deserves. Your Upper  Cervical Doctor needs your help to get this message out! It’s the only way that Upper Cervical Care is going to be recognized for the help it can bring.

Because you have seen the change firsthand in your body, you can be the change that you want to see in this world.

Here it is:

It’s a shame to know so much about life that the only people you will allow to teach you anything are those with more letters after their name.

I believe everyone has something to teach, as we all should be students of life.

I have definitely learned more about upper cervical care and chiropractic in general  from my patients than I ever could have in a classroom. Or at one of our NUCCA upper cervical conferences. By opening my ears and being willing to share in the wisdom of someone’s experience, I believe I have become a better doctor.

I still need to work at it, of course; I’m still learning. Perhaps one day we’ll have an opportunity to teach each other.

You can always start by visiting the comment boxes and sharing your wisdom.

–Albert Einstein.

One of the beautiful things about  upper cervical chiropractic care is how simple it is.

With NUCCA we get your head on straight, take stress off the spine and the nervous system, and we wait for the body to  heal.

Nothing added. Nothing taken away.

But what makes it beautiful also makes it difficult for many to accept.

Many think:

That sounds too good. That sounds too easy. If it were that simple, I would have heard of it by now.

To people with those doubts, I offer the quote from Albert Einstein above.

Yes, there are complex problems that require complex solutions.

But an upper cervical misalingment is often a small, simple thing that affects body systems in such a way to cause the appearance of confusing, complex symptoms. In reality, the root of the problem may be very simple. And correctable.

You just have to be willing to accept the possibility that things aren’t as complex as you think.