Here is my Problem With NUCCA and Atlas Alignment

Contrary to what many may believe, I do have an open mind and I carefully read a lot of posts with topics ranging from natural supplements, drugs, surgeries, NUCCA, etc....

As we all know, lately, a lot of talk on these forums revolves around NUCCA practicioners and the role the misalignment of the atlas may have on vestibular symptoms, meniere's, migraines, etc...

I just finished reading a post made by Songbird in which she posts a letter (or e-mail) sent to her by a NUCCA practicioner in the UK. In that letter she mentions that a traumatic event like whiplash from a car accident is enough to jolt the atlas into misaligment which, in return, can cause all types of undesirable symptoms, including meniere's.

You see, my point is that, on the surface, this explanation seems reasonable. But, as I think longer, I can't help but point out that there are so many people that have traumatic events repeatedly in their lives which obviously misalign their atlas yet they have no adverse symptoms ever. How can this be explained? We are all "anatomically" the same so I won't buy the argument that different people react differently to the same stimuli. What about the boxer who endures tens of thousands of blows to his head over the life of his career? As an avid boxing fan, I have never heard of boxers retiring because of headaches or dizziness. On a more personal note, I know a friend who was involved in such a horrific car accident that he had to spend a month in the hospital. After his healing, he never had any headaches, tinnitus, or dizziness even though the whiplash he endured was enormous, according to him.

These are the types of questions nobody can ever answer and that is why I have a problem with people putting so much faith into something that they have been told will improve their meniere's symptoms exponetially.

We are human beings. As humans we move, we run, we jump, we bounce, we lift, we sleep, we get injured, we recover, we slouch, we have good posture, we have terrible posture, we get tense, etc.

What I am getting at is that there is NO POSSIBLE WAY to live in a manner that will keep our atlas aligned perfectly for all of our lives. Therefore, to the NUCCA preachers, how do you account for the hundreds of millions, if not billions of people around the world, who probably have lived more dangerous lives than these poor folks with meniere's, yet have no adverse symptoms at all?

That is the million dollar question.

 

Aw, the mysteries of the human body. Why does a person have arthritis in one knee and not the other? Why does a person have MM in one ear and not the other? Why does somebody get breast cancer in one breast and not the other? I am talking about the same person - with disease that cannot be explained why or why not.

Nassman, whoever can answer this question will definitely be rich! I guess we are back to the issue that what works for some people will not work for another. I would have to agree with you that while supplements, drugs, surgeries, NUCCA may work for some, they will not work for all. But I guess we have to try, don't we? We keep trying because we want to have hope. We continue to try different things (esp if they are non-invasive or permanent) because we just want relief and are willing to try green cheese from the Moon if it has helped somebody else.

Lousy answer, I know.

 

I don't have a credible answer to your question. I don't. You raise a very valuable point. And the NUCCA practitioners have made it quite clear that their treatments are NOT an absolute cure. They have told me that in their experience treating patients, they have seen a reduction or elimination of all of the symptoms I am suffering from. Along with the fact that I have suffered from headaches, neck aches and back aches for a lot of my 46 years, I am slowly, and I mean slowly, seeing an improvement in my symptoms. For the first 3 adjustments - it was a painful way to spend a day. I could feel how the subtle adjustments were changing the alignment of my hips and upper neck.

But for the last few days - almost a week - the pain in my lower neck region is gone; I haven't had a headache, my lower back is not crying out for a heating pad and some Advil.

My tinnitus is quieter and the fullness in my ears is better - it doesn't feel like my head's about to explode.

I'm going to add this: I consider these NUCCA treatments to be in the same toolbox as my low salt diet, supplements, elimination of caffeine and other triggers, exercise, yoga, meditation, prayer and stress relief. I like so many others have an incurable condition. And I owe it to myself and my family to seek every way possible to fix or manage it.

I'm hopeful that as I continue with the treatments and continue to look after myself that I can make a life with this thing. And I'm not even sure what I have yet - TMJ/MAV ....as my ENT thinks or Meniere's like I think...

Your question is like asking why everyone who smokes doesn't get lung cancer (not everyone does). Or everyone who eats too much and is overweight doesn't get diabetes (which they don't).

I can't answer your million dollar question. All I can do is hope that as the adjustments hold, my body will have what it needs to heal itself - and the symptoms that I'm experiencing. All of them.

BTW - after 3 adjustments, my alignment held. A good sign that the body is starting to heal. I don't expect that today - I expect an adjustment and more discomfort. But I'm keenly aware of the effect it has on my body. And I will continue to tell whomever wants to listen about it.

I'm not taking anyone's side here...I'm just reporting what's happening.

Songbird

 

yes it is the million dollar question, hard to explain isn't it? ??? is as hard as why the same MM's is so different (in each one of us) frustrating... maybe the atlas bone thing does not cause MM's, just make it worse :-\

Not a lousy answer to me, at all, I must agree on this one, if is not dangerous, invasive or too risky, it is worth to try... maybe why people shouldn't do is to assure that what ever it is it's going to heal us all, because according to our statistics, nothing works the same for all of us, but if the information helps someone, we should be glad

you might think this is a lousy answer too : but I truly believe the main point is feeling as good as we can, and if we are able to try something, we should give it a shot
hugs
Adri.-

 

I agree with nassman - I also like the way he broke it down to simpler terms - i've done the chiropratic route, hollistic healing, chinese herbs, etc. and I still have mm and scd - sigh

 

It is a very good question and analysis. My doc really pooh-poohed the meniette, but now after having many (not all) patients find relief, he does prescribe it. I am glad he does before going for surgery. He said that it makes absolutely no sense to him that it works, but if it does, he is willing for people to give it a go. I told him that even if it had a placebo effect, I was willing to try! This is a disease that can make us so desperate, that I think trying things that won't hurt you can't be wrong. Lisa

 

Nass,

I don't know if this helps you out at all but my Nucca guy says that treatment can bring the body to a point where it can heal itself.

Imho the body is too complex to draw straight lines from Atlas Sublaxation to mm in every person.

It's just that simple (or complex).

 

Hi Nassman,

Although I agree with you that you do have an open mind, I sense from your post that you are somewhat of a linear thinker. I'll try to explain what I mean from that. If you remember from highschool, the equation of a line is y=mx+b. That means for every fixed value of m and b there is a unique value of y that can be calculated by varying x. In other words, if you hold m and b constant and vary x, you will get a value of y that varies only with x. In my opinion, that is very much of what you are doing with your analysis of upper cervical chiropractic and its results regarding various Meniere's experiences. According to your thinking, if head trauma (X) is the cause of Menieres (Y), one could predict the onset of Meniere's by the equation, (Y)Meniere's = m(head trauma(X)) + t, where m is,say, the intensity of the trauma and t is the time between the trauma and the onset of Meniere's symptoms. In some cases, that might be an accurate equation that would predict Meniere's. But in other cases, a linear equation may not be an accurate predicter. There may be more than just those parameters that define Meniere's. There are types of head traumas. There are the sizes of the bones involved. There are the factors of chance and direction of the trauma. There are chemical factors inthe brain. In fact, there are millions of potential factors that might go into the actual equation that defines Meniere's. For that reason, I do not believe that your objection to upper cervical chiropractic is justified on the argument you put forth. I do not believe that there is a one to one correspondence between any partucular head trauma event, the resulting misalignment of the Atlas and Meniere's. There are too many other contributors and that approach doesn't take enough into consideration. Meniere's on the whole is not a simple equation and therefore cannot be described as one.

This thread is getting very thoughtful though. That is a good thing.

Hank

 

Milo said it much more simply than I did. I did not see Milo's entry before I posted mine. The fact the we picked up on the same theme as a reply is no coincidence.

Good thinkin, Milo.

Hank

 

Ditto. I hope you're feeling better

Thanks, Nassman.

 

Just like with anything else you have to keep up the new habit or else you will fall back in old ways.
NUCCA realignments need support work.....you have to relearn posture, do gentle exercises, be minful of how you position your head and neck etc. And occasionally you will have to go back in for tweaking.
When someone is overweight and gets on a healthy eating plan, joins a gym etc. and loses a lot of weight, he/she can't say...well now that I've lost all this weight I am going back to not working out and eating whatever I want and I'll keep being slim. It ain't gonna work!!! Same thing with ANY kind of rehab/realignment work. It is the patient's responsibility to keep it up.
And while I do agree that there may be no way to keep it perfectly aligned, you can get to a place where you start to feel better with whatever symptoms you went in for. And just like there are no surefire cures sometimes with traditional medicine, same with alternative medicine.

 

repeat post...sorry!

 

-

 

My question is similar:

When it comes to MM, how does one distinguish between natural remission and cure from the efforts of the patient?

It seems like dealing with MM is very much like dealing with a colic-y baby. You feed, you burp, you change--is baby hot, or cold, or warm, or cool? Pins sticking him? Does he need play time? Nap time? Suddenly, something works and baby calms down and drifts off to sleep. What did it this time? Was it the pacifier? The blankey? The Barney video? Who knows!

This disease goes into remission BY ITSELF. I just don't know how a person would be able to confidently declare that this effort or that effort cause what might have been natural remision.

Just my thoughts, of course. I'm new to MM and if I'm off the mark, somebody please put me out of my misery.

 

.

 

DITTO!!

 

I agree 100%, it seems that every six months or so, I come out of my remission, then immediately start taking my meds and fortunately go back into remission for another six months.
Placebo effect ?, I think not.

Larry

 

When i went and saw a neurotologist, i asked him about problems with the neck and the compression on the inner ear. He replied rather bluntly "that doesn't cause vertigo".

I asked him what does, and he couldn't give me an answer. I tried to show him a printout of people who had been helped with Upper Chiro work, and he wasn't interested. I then asked him about Acyclovir. He gave a smug smile and replied "there is not enough testing out there to prove that theory". I tried to show him a printout of the study undertaken in Japan with Acyclovir, and once again he was not interested. He was a real frustrating piece of work. I asked him what he thought worked. He said, low salt, diuretic, and if that fails, Gent injections, then surgery. I said i had done low salt and diuretic, not working. He said my hearing is too good to try Gent, and to keep going low salt. I thanked him and walked out.

The whole time i was in there, he was busy taking phone calls organising lunch, and then near the end, 2 young Dr's walked in, and he made smug comments about how i bought up Acyclovir and Upper Chiro stuff.

These are the people we put our trust in?? No thanks. He was arrogant, and rude and walks around with blinkers on.

The Chiro has not once said that he can cure me. He said he was confident of getting my C1 and C2 aligned, and go from there.

Specialists don't want to know anything else. They only have their way. Well, the specialists i have seen anyway. I am not saying they are all like that, but here in Oz, we are limited on specialists for the dizzies.

Cheers

 

Sure we are anatomically the same in a general sense, but we aren't all exactly alike. Many of us have inherent weaknesses that are highly individual. Then there's the aging factor. No one can deny that as we get older we don't heal up as well and naturally as we use to, and our bodies don't repair themselves as easily on their own.

For example, my husband use to ride dirtbikes when he was a teenager. He rode hard and beat his body up way too much. And his body took care of it. As he got older, he realized he wasn't bouncing back like he use to, and to try it now, at 50, it would be a medical disaster for him to ride like that.

When I was 16 I got bucked off a horse, onto blacktop, landed on my hip. Sure it hurt, but I got back up and continued riding. No problems. For that to happen now at 45, I can guarantee I wouldn't be getting back up on the horse, and probably would need help getting up off the pavement, followed by a few weeks of chiropractic care if not more medical help.

Besides, I have 2 friends, both have had serious vertigo attacks, neither have meniere's, and with a couple of chiropractic adjustments, not even NUCCA, their vertigo went away.

There are those that have run their bodies hard, whether it be sports, dancing, repetitive jobs, whatever, and for years have had no problems, only to have it catch up with them later in life, needing treatments that they never did before. We have no way of knowing how many are dealing with this after they are no longer in the public eye.

So while you make some valid considerations, we cannot all be lumped into the same category of healing. If we are all the same then why are there so many afflications that many of us don't share. Besides, how do you know what kinds of treatments the boxers are getting or not getting? Or anyone else that you don't know personally?

And with the same reasoning I would say that we can't all expect to have success with the same treatments. I've never been to a NUCCA specialist, I don't feel that I need one. But I believe that many could, and have been, helped by NUCCA treatments.

 

Sorry, nass, but I think your reasoning is too simplistic. We do all have the same pieces/parts in our necks and heads, but...

1-they are not all the same size and shape (e.g.: chiari malformation)

2-they are not all the same strength to resist injuries (e.g.: boxers do workouts to improve stability and protect their necks - I would also delve further into boxers who never achieved celebrity status probably because of neck and head injuries )

3-they do not all receive the same type or power or number of injuries (Why did Dale Earnhardt die in a wreck other Nascar drivers had walked away from - the very specific way in which his neck was injured)

Your thesis does not take into consideration the layering of various factors: genetics, variations in anatomy, lifestyle, training or lack of training, diet, overall health, ability to heal...

Nice try though. It's the same reasoning I use to refute mainstream solutions. A large enough number of people (with the same ear anatomy) get little or no relief from VNS, sack decompression, and gent injections to warrant removing them as solutions to vestibular illnesses.

As far as your questions being the type that no one can ever answer...I think that there are some very valid answers in this thread.

SpinininOhio