Chronic Pain, Brain Plasticity And Upper Cervical Care

By Dr. Davis, N.U.C.C.A. Chiropractor 

Brain Plasticity also called Neuroplasticity is the ability of your brain to reorganize neural (nerve) pathways in the brain. In simple terms, every time you learn how to do something, you are unconsciously memorizing the process of how it’s done and what the outcome will be. As you learn, your brain is making subtle changes to accommodate the new information and ability.  Neuroplasticity is generally a good thing and allows us to survive. However, there can be negative consequences.

When a person suffers a head or neck injury as a result of a car crash, fall or other accident, the tissues around the spine are stretched and torn.  This damage creates a weakness which allows the spine to break down and lock into a stressed position.  One of the hips will be higher than the other in the standing position.  One of the shoulders will be higher and the head will generally lean to one side.  If this acute injury is not corrected a chronic pattern will develop.  Just like shaping something made of plastic the nervous system begins to develop a fixed pattern. Think of this like a bad habit.  If you do the same thing all the time your brain and your body begins to develop that pattern and the longer you have had that habit the harder it will be to break.

In the same way with these chronic spinal patterns…the longer it has been there the more difficult is will be to break the pattern.

What does chronic pain have to do with neuroplasticity?

As research techniques become more refined, researchers are able to study the human brain and its function in living people, rather than waiting for an autopsy. Up to now, researchers have been able to establish the existence of a network of pain-transmitting areas within the central nervous system (CNS). This was first demonstrated with animals and, more recently, by performing brain studies with humans.

Chronic pain is pain that has been present, either continually or off and on, for at least three to six months.  Chronic pain is complex and often difficult to pinpoint and treat by the medical profession. Acute pain is a sudden pain that can usually be identified and treated, such as a toothache, stubbing your toe, or having surgery.  Chronic pain is very common among North American adults. Data from 1999 demonstrated that about 50 million people seek help for chronic pain. Chronic pain affects people’s lives because it can cause other physical problems, affect the ability to work and enjoy life, and it can affect the social and economic status of people. Chronic pain causes lost productivity and increases health care costs.

Where neuroplasticity comes in is when acute pain develops into chronic pain. Your body reacts to acute pain as it warns you that something is wrong. Usually, once the acute pain has been dealt with, the pain goes away and becomes a distant memory. However, if the cause of the acute pain is not dealt with over the course of a few weeks, months, and sometimes even years, your brain’s “wiring” may reorganize itself and tell your body that the chronic pain should be there and will stay there.  How this change occurs is different from person to person.

Chronic back pain, particularly of the lower back, is the most common complaint of pain in the developed world, even more than headaches and migraines. It’s estimated that 70 to 85 percent of people in developed countries have had, have, or will have chronic lower back pain at some point in their lifetime.  The connection between back pain and brain function has interested researchers for quite a while. In 2004, A.V. Apkanian and colleagues analyzed 17 patients who complained of chronic back pain. After examining the patients’ brains, the researchers found that the patients had some brain atrophy (wasting away of tissue) in the brain.

“Other researchers, such as T. Schmidt-Wicke, agreed with Apkarian when that team studied 18 patients and matched them with controls, people without chronic back pain. The researchers found the same decrease in brain tissue among those patients who had pain, but not in the controls.”

Eight studies that looked at the shape and changes in brain tissue point to the issue that there is a connection between neuroplasticity and chronic pain. It appears that no matter what is causing the chronic pain, the same changes are taking place in the brain and in the same areas.

What is actually causing the brain cell shrinkage or loss?  That’s the key issue.

New research relating to the blood flow to and from the brain may provide a connection.  Phase contrast MRI of the veins and arteries from the brain to the body are showing that when a person has a misalignment of the upper neck (Atlas vertebrae) the blood flow from the brain is altered.  Once the atlas is restored to it’s normal position the blood flow is normalized.

So if someone suffers an injury that causes a misalignment of the atlas at 25 and does not find the underlying structural problem for 10 years…the brain has not had normal blood flow for 10 years! That may result in the atrophy that the researchers are detecting.  And why so frequently we see patients with Lower Back Pain or Sciatica respond so well to an upper neck adjustment with the NUCCA procedure.

If you are experiencing chronic pain an underlying Atlas Misalignment could be the reason.  To have your brain stem and upper cervical spine evaluated for an undetected injury go to  www.nuccawellness.com if you are not in the San Diego County area go to www.nucca.org

References:

http://www.spineuniversity.com/files/Journal_Watch/spineU_neuroplasticity.pdf

http://ucrf.org/projects-funding/project-descriptions#cerebral

Babies, Birth and Upper Cervical Care

Was Your Baby Injured During the Birth

by Dr. Bill Davis


Many new Moms and Dads will ask if it is possible for an infant to be misaligned during the birth process. Good question!

Modern birthing methods of having the Mom push the baby out without gravity working to your advantage, laying flat on your back is a prescription for increased force into the head and neck of the baby in and of itself. But then you introduce all the drugs used during the birth process, which includes an epidural which numbs the area that a woman typically would feel when pushing. And the introduction of drugs like pitocin to induce delivery often before the baby is ready for delivery, can lead to prolonged labors and an increase likelihood of birth trauma. Also practice of a doctor pulling during delivery with 50-70 pounds of force into the infant’s head from the birth canal and instruments like forceps and vacuum extraction can lead to a variety of different birth injuries. C-sections can also be very traumatic as the baby is pulled out of a small incision. (Check out this blog for helpful info and resources on nonintervention birthing)

So much so that women are told things like “yes your baby fractured their clavicle during the birth process, but that is normal.”

What?! What is normal about a fracture during birth? It may be common…but that doesn’t make it normal.

Now an important consideration is that not all infants are misaligned. In fact, in my experience even with the severity of forces that are used in the majority of American births, most babies are not misaligned. On average, of the babies that I have checked over the years only about 10-20% are misaligned at birth.

But if a child is misaligned at birth it is critical to get that misalignment corrected as soon as possible.

A misalignment of the Atlas, the top bone in the neck (the most likely bone to misalign during the birth process) has been linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, colic, ear infections, acid reflux and many other neurological conditions related to brain stem dysfunction and accompanying symptoms.

So what are some ways that a parent may assess their own child to determine if their baby should be evaluated for an upper neck misalignment?

The easiest situation would be if your child begins to develop symptoms of any kind. Such as ear infections. If a child is having ear infections a frequent cause is a misalignment in the upper neck that leads to poor drainage of the ears because the nerves that control the ears begin in the upper neck.

Or if your baby has colic. Colic is frequently related to a vagus nerve irritation from an upper neck misalignment during birth. Once the misalignment is corrected. The colic often will go away immediately.

Or a variety of other symptoms that most pediatricians and parents will think that the child needs medications to cover up rather than seeking an underlying cause.

But if you have a seemingly healthy child who has not developed any symptoms yet then you can look at a few different things. Such as when the baby lays flat on their back do they have a tendency to always have their head turned in one direction? Or can you feel if the musculature in the lower back area near the pelvis is symmetrical from side to side? Or can you feel that one side is much tighter than the other?

If you are unsure about any of these things find a local upper cervical doctor in your area to check your baby as soon as possible. It can make all the difference in the world for the growth, development and the health of your son or daughter.

The other wonderful aspect of finding problems early in the life of your child is that the frequency needed of an correction. A infant corrected at birth of within the first year of life may be able to hold that one correction for months if not years. So get your kids checked…there really is no downside to having a properly aligned spinal column and properly functioning brain and nerve system.

And a skilled upper cervical doctor will be able to correct this misalignment without any popping, cracking or twisting of the spine. A gentle and precise force to realign the atlas is the key.

(Editor's note: Remember the objective of upper cervical care is to correct head neck misalignment that is interfering with proper brain to body communication. When this is corrected the body functions at a higher level and can often correct other problems more efficiently on its own. Please do not confuse upper cervical care as a treatment for any condition, disease or symptom.)