I know that nobody wants to talk about these but somebody has to.
Let's start out by saying that nothing that we do in life is without some sort of possible negative outcome or risk. Getting out of bed in the morning, driving to work, walking across a busy street (even when it is okay to cross), all carry risk. The only way to avoid risk is death. Living is a risk and most of us get by just fine and in fact some of us even thrive.
That being said, does upper cervical care have risks and potential negative effects? Well of course it does. What are some of those possible negative effects though and how likely are they to happen? Believe it or not both of these questions can actually be very difficult to answer. You see it really depends on your frame of reference.
In many upper cervical circles the term retracing is used. Retracing implies just what it says, going back over ground already covered. Think about it this way, when you get up in the morning and head off to school or work you take certain roads turning certain directions at the right time until you arrive at you destination. At the end of the day you retrace your steps to get home. When we lose our health it is often the same, it happens step by step. If this decline is due to head/neck misalignment and that is corrected with upper cervical care than you can expect to retrace your step back to health. When the body does this you may have symptoms but they are a sign of change and repair.
While retracing is an actual phenomenon that does indeed happen, more so in some patients than others, it should not be, and is not, the reason for all effects from upper cervical care that are often looked at as negative. A real retracing effect, while inconvenient, should be welcomed since it is an indication that the body is changing, healing, and should subside within a reasonable period of time.
If it is not retracing then what are the effects from? They could be symptoms of something unrelated to UC care and may not improve with UC care so you may need to do some research and perhaps visit another health care professional better suited to assist you with the problem. It could also be that care was rendered incorrectly due to lack of experience on the part of the doctor, poor technique, analysis errors, improper x-ray placement, or incorrect patient positioning for the correction. All of which could result in a correction that does in fact not correct anything and could cause more problems and/or worsen existing ones. Is this done deliberately? No. People make mistakes, we are not perfect.
I do not share any of this to deter anyone from receiving UC care that may in fact, and in all probability will, help them. I mention it because nothing is perfect, even our own bodies do not get it right sometimes (at least from our perspective anyway). You see, in all honesty, we can't actually know if anything negative will happen and if it does what exactly it will be that happens. The most common things would be soreness and/or achiness in different areas of the body for different people. Keep in mind that upper cervical care has extremely low risk, due in large part to the gentleness and specificity of most of the approaches. In fact over it's roughly 80 year history it's clinical benefits far outweigh the extremely low risks. And in that 80 year history I do not know of any documented serious negative effects ever occurring from UC care.
So if you have found a doctor that is experienced, well trained, and has happy patients, relax the odds are greatly in your favor that you are in good hands just make sure that you are always communicating with your upper cervical doctor about any changes you experience in regards to your health. And by the slim chance that you do have a negative effect that seems to be related to the care or the care just isn't working for you I would give at least one more upper cervical doctor a try that uses a slightly different approach. I have seen this make all the difference in the world for some patients.
Questions or concerns? Just let me know if I can be of any help, drtravisrobertson@gmail.com or post a comment.
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