Quorum request

Until I found this site I did'nt have to ask anyone for their opinion, I already had all the answers. Im joking. I've found that I can make better decissions listening to the experience and knowledge of others. Thanks to everyone for your imput. We are all different and collectivly our differences can over come this beast.

Henry here's some info for you.57, 6 days a week I have moments of nausea with light headedness and dizziness. Most of the time they last 30 to 45 seconds. This is daily norm a 2 to 6 times a day. On accasion the dizziness starts a quick and short spin. 3 years ago when this creature showed up it was full spinning for a few hours out of a dead sleep in the middle of the night. A week later the same thing during the day. We were on vacation. In the bed for 2 days. What takes place now on a daily bases is what happens prior to the full spin. I somehow seem to mentally stop the full spin unless im slepping when it comes. There was a few weeks about a year ago when all stopped with no symptoms. The only surgery ive ever had was about 4 years ago for an internal hernia. The only time I have had any impact to my head was at birth, the delivery doctor said "oh my god" and my mother jumped and he dropped me on my head.Not. Ive had cat scans, the neck arterys checked. I wasn't on blood pressure medicine until the first time it hit me. My pressure was high at the dr. office that trip. Go figure. I still indulge some but over all have dropped salt intake, reduced red meat.

 

I forgot, I have had tinnitus probably for 10 to 15 years. Lost speach freq. in left ear 15 years ago. Both ears ring all the time. Never quits.Cant deal with noisy places especially if it noise from people talking.

 

Do you ever get a sense of fullness or pressure that seems to emanate from maybe an inch and a half inside either ear? Both?

Did you say, or do you have any hearing loss?

Does the tinnitus vary with an oncoming symptom, as in building until the vertigo comes on and then subsiding later, or is the tinnitus at a constant level and in both ears?

Regarding your chiropractor, did he do any tests? X-rays? If so, please describe.

What did the chiropractor tell you about the conditions of your spine, most importantly the upper cervical? What did he say about the misalignment that he is treating? Do you have a properly curved neck? Any scoliosis apparent? What about the spacing between the vertebra, plenty of room or are their signs that discs are deteriorating and compressing? Any arthritic conditions?

Sorry to ask so many questions, but knowledge of these answers will help me formulate a more valid opinion regarding whether this course might help you.

 

Here's what I can tell you. That you have no sense of aural fullness, you do not appear to suffer from a hydrops condition. In other words, your symptoms do not appear to manifest by virtue of a problem of fluid build up in the inner ear. That also tells us that your symptoms do not seem to conform to the symptoms generally recognized as "Meniere's symptoms." Don't get too excited yet.

Also, that this building or elevated tinnitus that precedes your equilibrium symptoms is in both ears, rather than one, also indicates that there is no connection with your symptoms and certain conditions that give rise to Meniere's symptoms. That the tinnitus elevates in both ears prior to equilibrium symptoms also indicates a possible common cause for your tinnitus in both ears. I believe this might be helpful information to know. That is because there are few common causes to consider. One common cause is in the upper cervical area. Press down on your head from the top. Does your tinnitus increase, even slightly? Let me know.

That your left ear is partially deaf likely indicates either tissue damage in the left inner ear, blockage in the left middle or outer ear, or a nerve impairment of the hearing half of the 8th cranial nerve that serves the left ear, which nerve carries both sound and equilibrium impulses to and from the brain, via an attachment of that nerve in the brain stem area just above the first vertebra.

I am concerned that your chiropractor did not educate you any better than he did. Regarding x-rays, he should have taken three, one from the front, one from the side, and one looking directly down from the top. The front indicates a side to side tilt. The side indicates a front to back tilt. And the top indicates the degree of rotation. From these x-rays, he should be able to show you what is normal alignment, and contrast that with your alignment so that you understand what you are dealing with.

If your neck is straight, like this


then that is something you need to know. That would indicate that your neck has been misaligned for a long, long time, possibly even from the incident at birth, who knows. But if that is the case, and if your upper cervical is the cause of your symptoms, then you can also know that just a few trips to the chiropractor may not fix your symptoms. But this is information that he needs to share with you. All I can do here is speculate and educate.

So if the information you shared here is all that he shared with you, then I question the practices of your chiropractor. I would say the same thing about any medical doctor who does not spend the time it takes to educate a patient about the condition the patient has. An educated and informed patient is a better patient, one more apt to improve.

The other aspect of the chiropractor's practice that I question is the instrument technique. I have no experience with it. And I know that it is supposed to do everything that the hand should do in aligning the spine, BUT I do not have the confidence in an instrument that cannot feel the neck align into place. Chiropractors who practice NUCCA can actually guide and feel the bone movement. Therefore I believe it is a better technique. And furthermore, to my knowledge, there has been no one who has come to this website, learned of these things from me, gone to an Atlas Orthogonal practicing chiropractor (AO), which is what your doctor practices, and reported any improvement. Now that could be for various reasons that we cannot begin to speculate on. But I am just going to tell you that the folks who have shown improvement have almost all undergone NUCCA, all except Taximom, who went to a general chiropractor, but whom I believe used the hands to perform the adjustment. Taximom had severe tinnitus, and she will tell you that the tinnitus resolved after undergoing his upper cervical adjustment. Perhaps she will read this a chime in. I do not mean to speak for her, and may not have the details entirely correct.

The bone spurs indicate persisting spinal misalignments. The tests that he made indicate a pronounced affect on the muscles and nerves of the neck, which also indicate the kind of misalignments that can cause the kinds of symptoms you tell us about.

That your symptoms are so disjointed indicates to me that yours is likely a combination of nerve disorders, which could be brought on by upper cervical abnormalities. But if you have not, you need to also be tested for tumors and other medical conditions that might also bring about a plethora of seemingly disjoint symptoms. I presume that you have had MRI's and tests for acoustic neuromas and the like?

There is so much to tell you. But if you are going to continue with this practitioner, I urge you to get down and dirty with him and get him to spill his knowledge about what he sees in your x-rays.

 

I am just wondering if anybody has ever been to a chiropractor or NUCCA dr and was told everything looks great.

If 1million people went to a chiro or nucca dr 1million people would try to be talked into getting adjusted.

Just seems a little odd.

I have been to plenty medical dr's and they have said everything looks ok you will be ok, not so with chiro's / nucca. According to them, everybody is screwed up.

 

The x-rays do not lie.

 

Think about it this way. The chiro wants to make money right. He's not in business because he likes people. If he tells you he can't help you, you won't spend ANY money with him. The more times he can get you to walk through his doors, the more money he makes.

 

Leonard:

Your right, he us a salesman selling an idea and when people are desparate they believe anything.

How is the good ear holding up Leodard?

Be good
Joe

 

Henry you askedress down on your head from the top. Does your tinnitus increase, even slightly? Let me know. It does. No doubt.

 

OK, mine too. I expect that is very good for you. It means that at least one component/cause of your tinnitus is likely abnormal pressure on the brain stem. When you press down on the head, you compress the brain stem. The more you compress, the louder the tinnitus it is. I expect that you can make your tinnitus intensify by clamping your jaw down at the molar area too. Be that as it may, the abnormal condition of your neck, pressing on the brain stem, is causing at least one of your symptoms, that component of tinnitus that gets louder when you press.

Now there are various other causes of tinnitus. But this is one. Taximom had that and she remedied it with proper chiropractic treatment.

You really need to get checked out by someone who specializes in this area of the spine. I expect that someone who really knows what he or she is doing may be able to help you, not only with your tinnitus, but other more aggravating symptoms as well..

 

Henry:

what are your symptoms, if any? I believe you indicated some tinitus and that is it.

How many Nucca treatments did it take to alleviate your symptms?

Joe

 

Folks here seem to always mention 4 things that suggest MM (cant remember the exact one right now). I haven't seen anything suggesting a simalar list to qualify as MAV. My symptoms are closer with folks here who have been diagnosed with MAV than MM.

 

Check out this thread: http://www.menieres.org/forum/index.php/topic,29072.0.html

 

Hello vanisdizzy,

Here is a link to an interesting paper, describing the modulation of tinnitus by jaw movement, or pressure on the jaw or the head.

http://www.smbs.buffalo.edu/neu/pinchoff.PDF


Cheers,

Chris

 

Chris, that is a very interesting study you have cited. I will have more to offer on that tomorrow. Thank you for finding that and bringing it to our attention.

 

Hank,

As always, a pleasure....

 

Incidentally, x-rays can, and do, lie. Quite frequently, actually.

 

Two ways, actually. One has to do with the films themselves (quality, technique, penetration, etc). The second has to do with the fact that the x-ray is just a picture and doesn't "speak," so what an x-ray "says" is really what the person doing the interpretation claims it says. I'll break it down a bit further.

Let's talk about the first issue, which has to do with the film itself. It's very well-known that things like fractures can be present yet not be detected by a plain x-ray, for example. This happens frequently with hairline fractures. But since we're mostly concerned with necks on this thread, I'll address that issue more directly. Anyone with any amount of credible experience dealing with x-rays knows that findings like "loss of cervical lordosis" can be a pure artifact on an x-ray film. If a patient isn't positioned correctly, if the head is tilted too far back, if the angle of the machine is off, etc., you can see what looks like a straightened neck. Yet, in reality, there might not be any loss of lordosis at all. It's an artifact from the positioning. This is why any credible physician will tell you, "We treat patients, not films." X-rays can be a very important and effective tool for making diagnoses, but they are far from infallible. When it comes to the NUCCA films especially, there is a significant margin of error because of the subjectivity involved in the placement of landmarks. If the landmark (the beebee pellet) is placed just slightly this way or slightly that way on the ear lobe or on the skull, the measurements are going to be different. When you're talking about making a distinction of a supposed 1 mm subluxation of the atlas this way or that, just the slightest movement of the pellet one way or the other will change the measurements taken. You see this with other modalities like ultrasounds performed on babies in utero. Sure, the tech does his/her best to measure the various structures, but those measurements are predicated on where the cursor is placed. If you put it half a millimeter this way or that, it changes the result. That's why there are acceptable margins of error for those types of tests.

Then there is the second aspect of how x-rays lie: the subjective art of interpretation. I can put a film up on a viewbox and invite 5 different radiologists (or other physicians, for that matter) to view the films separately. I bet I will get 5 different interpretations of the study. And this isn't my making a wild generalization or supposition, but rather this is something I actually see every single day in my work. Certainly, there are very obvious findings -- or "gross" findings -- that most doctors will spot right away and agree with. But there is an enormous amount of subjectivity in the details. One man's "mild degenerative change" is another man's "moderate to severe degeneration." So the fact that a physician (or chiropractor) INTERPRETS a film (and make no mistake, it is actually called an interpretation for a reason), doesn't necessarily mean that they are right. If that were the case, I would have never represented a radiologist in my career, and yet I've represented dozens of them. Why? Because claims are made all the time that a doctor missed a finding, or misinterpreted the significance of a finding. This is especially a cause for concern when the interpreting physician already has a built-in bias. As, for example, a chiropractor who has formulated a pre-conceived notion based on your symptoms that you have a problem related to your neck. It's not that they're lying (at least not most of them), it's that they're seeing what their mind is telling them to see.

 

My neurologist always insisted on seeing all films himself. He said with regard to the operated see he knew what he had done/rearranged and the radiologist didn't.