Are you looking to relieve neck pain or back pain? This is a common question that we get asked many times in the office. If I have low back pain, why don’t you adjust the low back? Yup, I know it seems crazy that we only work with the top two bones of the neck, but there are plenty of reasons! Read on to learn more about the importance of upper cervical chiropractic care for neck pain relief.
Here’s the WHY
The top bones of the neck, called the Atlas and Axis, not only play an important role in movement, but they also house part of the brainstem. What’s the importance of the brainstem? The brainstem essentially helps us every single day with life sustaining activities…. So, everything that we don’t have to think about happens here! Our breathing, blood pressure, sleeping, digesting our food, and more happen in this VERY important area! Seriously, wouldn’t it be so overwhelming to have to do EVERY single task with a thought process?? We are already overwhelmed with stress, especially when we’re looking to relieve neck pain or back pain. Thankfully, the brainstem is here to support us… literally. You sometimes hear the system get called autonomic, which, in essence, means all tasks that are not consciously directed. Because this is SUCH an important area, we believe in being conservative and thoughtful while performing adjustments!
Everything is Connected
Another major reason is that every single nerve that feeds every single cell, tissue, and organ originate from the brainstem. Our spinal cord is an offshoot of the brainstem, which means EVERYTHING is connected! How cool is that?! Because it is such an important area, we take major measures to keep it safe! At Liv Chiropractic Center, we want to be the best Chiropractors we can possibly be for YOU, so we take extra steps! Because everything is so connected, we can adjust the top two bones and it can affect the lower nerves of the back!
Here’s an analogy that puts it all together… It’s like you walk into your house and notice your kitchen lights aren’t work, your fridge isn’t running, the stove doesn’t turn on, and you’re frustrated beyond belief. You go into the living room and bedrooms and all of those switches work, so where do you go to find the problem?! You would check the breaker box! You wouldn’t change every single light and light switch, you would just go to the box to flip the switch! That’s how we think of the brainstem, it’s the switch box that helps/feeds the whole body!
Now that we’ve outlined the reasoning, how do we check to see if it’s working properly?!
Computerized Infrared Thermography
First, we have this really awesome tool called Computerized Infrared Thermography. This tool takes millions of data to measure heat on each side of the spine. After it collects all of this data, it compares the right and left side of the spine and figures out the differences in temperature! This gives us a unique insight to relieve neck pain and back pain. In an ideally perfect world, each side of the spine should be the same temperature, but when the nervous system isn’t communicating well, like a traffic jam, we start seeing different temperatures on each side! The cool thing is that this is measured information, meaning it is objective! We don’t do any guess work here, especially with your nervous system!
A Unique Chiropractic Approach
We always get asked “Why is your adjustment different?” Our adjustment is different in many ways! We ONLY work with the top two bones of the neck to relieve neck pain and back pain, and we adjust using multiple factors and biomechanically friendly methods. It is a quick adjustment that can CHANGE your whole body! After you get the adjustment, we have you rest in our cool zero gravity chairs that dip lower than a recliner! This relaxation gives your body the chance to heal.
Relieve Neck Pain or Back Pain
Schedule a a free consultation today. You can also give us a call at 925-237-1535 if you have any questions.
