How Strong is Your Signal?

By Dr. Adam Tanase

Most people are familiar with the concept of “bars” that identify the strength of a cell phone signal. When I used to be a Sprint customer, I could be in the same room with another Sprint customer who had the same phone as me, but we’d have different signal strengths. It was puzzling because one would have a full signal, and the other was struggling to maintain just one bar.

Similar to how your cell phone won’t work properly without a strong signal, your body depends on a strong signal between the brain and body via the nervous system.

Upper Cervical chiropractors use a technology called Computerized Infrared Thermography, or CIT for short, that primarily evaluates this “signal” balance between the brain and both sides of the body. It’s comparable to the “bars” on your cell phone.

Muscles, tissues and cells within the right half of the body should be receiving the same quality of nerve signals as the left half of the body. Lopsided “signal strength” favoring one half over the other suggests an imbalance in body function and performance.

One of the advantages of receiving Upper Cervical Care is that after the doctor makes an atlas-correction, we’re able to remeasure your body’s communication signal, and confirm that balance was restored. So there’s no guesswork involved… patients are able to see their improvement.

(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.)

What Can An Upper Cervical Doctor Do For You?

by Drs. Molina and Salera

Click here for source article

What Do Upper Cervical Doctors Do?

Simple! The nervous system is responsible for the regulation and coordination of all the actions of the human body - including keeping you alive, happy and healthy. Your nervous system knows how to heal a cut, how to give you a fever when fighting an infection, how to give you a cough when you need to clear your lungs, and it even knows how to rid your body of cancer. Our only job is to keep your nervous system functioning properly and allow life to flow freely through your body! A healthy nervous system leads to a life of optimal health, increased human performance, and maximum human potential.

What is Upper Cervical Care?

Since the late 1920s, a small group of Chiropractic specialists have abandoned typical 'full-spine adjustments', limiting their practice to precise adjustments of two vertebrae, the Atlas and Axis; these specialists are referred to as upper cervical doctors. Unlike the other bones of the spine, which are anatomically locked into a certain position, the Atlas and Axis are located at the top of the neck (upper cervical spine) and are free to move around and therefore are uniquely vulnerable to misalignments. This small group of upper cervical doctors were committed to making the care as scientific, specific and efficient as possible, and realized that a misalignment of the Atlas and/or Axis may be one of the causes of decreased health and performance.

Understand: We care for, and maintain, the entire human frame (from the top of the head to the bottoms of your feet), but we only adjust the upper cervical spine. We have found, and the scientific research supports that correcting misalignments of the upper cervical spine improves function throughout the entire human body.

Why Is The Upper Cervical Spine So Important?

The central nervous system is responsible for all functions of the human body and is divided into three parts: the brain, brain stem, and spinal cord. The Atlas and Axis surround a portion of the nervous system referred to as the brain stem. Simply put, the brain stem is responsible for keeping you alive. It controls your immune system, emotions, vision, consciousness, hearing, balance, breathing, heart rate, blood pressure, digestion, muscle tension, posture, hormones, and many other functions. Also, almost every single nerve that travels from the brain to the body has to pass through the brain stem.

               

Misalignments of the Atlas and/or Axis may potentially injure, impair, compress, and/or compromise the function of the Brain Stem. In other words, an Atlas and/or Axis misalignment can decrease the function of the nervous system. Without proper brain stem function, the human body could ultimately reach a state of sickness or disease but at the very least it will decrease human potential/performance. Upper cervical doctors are committed to detecting interference to brain stem function and, if present, removing the interference to the brain stem and improving health and function!

Can Upper Cervical Care Help Me?

Yes! Upper cervical care can help everyone - newborns to seniors, "sick" or healthy. Everyone will benefit from proper brain stem function. If you are sick, and we detect irritation to your brain stem due to an upper cervical misalignment, we can help you! If you are not "sick", and we detect irritation to your brain stem due to an upper cervical misalignment, we can help you reach your optimal potential!

               

Regardless of which condition you may have, or not have,

you need a good nerve supply.

Regardless of whether you're an athlete, or a couch potato,

you need a good nerve supply.

Regardless of whether you eat organic food, or eat junk food,

you need a good nerve supply.

Regardless of whether you drink water, or drink whiskey,

you need a good nerve supply.

Regardless of whether you have cancer, or back pain,

you need a good nerve supply.

And upper cervical doctors can help with that, they can help you attain and maintain a good nerve supply and that is important to anyone who want to reach closer to their potential in life.  

Why Was I Never Told About This?

Adapted from "Why Didn't Somebody Tell Me This?"

By Dr. Frank Bowling

I just watched a short video by Dr. Jim Sigafoose, one of my early mentors, in which he tells the moving story of a very sick young girl whose family had nearly given up hope when, like so many others, they finally sought care for her as a last resort.

Asked whether anything could be done, Dr. Sig replied, “I have no idea – but I can move the bone, and God can do the healing.” The father’s response was, “Why didn’t anybody ever tell me this before?!”

Well, to make a long story short, the girl did get better, but the relevant question here is, “What in the world was Dr. Sigafoose talking about?” Sounds more like religion than science, doesn’t it?

Innate Intelligence

You and I started out as two cells – one from our father, and one from our mother. Those two cells came together and formed the beginning of us, and over a period of about nine months, we went from one cell to (depending on whom you ask), somewhere between 10 and 100 trillion. We might call that “The Miracle of Life.”

The amazing part, though, is not the simple fact that we multiplied from one cell into trillions, but that they all went off in different directions to do different jobs. Some became part of our kneecaps, some formed a heart, some built an immune system, and so on. In other words, it’s like 100 trillion separate little animals crawling off to participate in thousands of complex functions, all conceived, orchestrated and conducted into the most beautiful symphony ever written, and directed by some unseen hand.

Any objective observer, any scientist can tell you that there’s more going on in this process than chemistry and physics. Whatever built us from one cell into a newborn baby did the whole thing on purpose. It certainly was no random accident, no chance collision of molecules. Those little cells are organized.

But here’s the important part: once that innate intelligence forms a new baby, it doesn’t go off and make another one – it stays inside of us, hence the term innate, and runs every aspect of our lives, every second of every day. If we cut ourselves, if we break a bone, if we have a cold or the flu or any other symptom or disease, it’s our own innate intelligence that does the healing. It just knows how to do it.

Medical doctors don’t heal. Medications don’t heal. Operations don’t heal. Upper cervical corrections don’t heal. All any doctor or pill or procedure or upper cervical correction can do is seek to remove the interference to healing, so that the body’s own innate potential can be expressed. Healing always flows from above down, and from the inside out.

Moving the Bone

The principle is almost too simple, which is partly why it’s taking so long for it to be understood and accepted. “What do the bones have to do with innate intelligence?” you might reasonably wonder.

As it turns out, our innate intelligence expresses itself largely through our communication system, the nervous system, and that system is stretched over the body’s frame (the bones) like a spider web, or like the strings of a musical instrument, or like one of my mother’s doilies over that little pegboard she used to pin them on to dry.

Science has now confirmed that any distortion or restriction of our human frame can interfere with the nerves by disturbing their “tone” or “vibration,” in much the same way that the notes produced by plucking a guitar string are changed by altering its tension. Too much or too little, and we won’t be happy with the result.

We know that the nervous system regulates and maintains all of the organs and glands of the body, including the immune system, which determines how well we deal with colds, flu and other infections. We’ve even found out that a disruption of tone to the nerve system can alters gene expression, which affects how likely we are to actually develop the conditions or diseases of our parents. In other words, we aren’t necessarily “doomed” to have the same problems they had – much of our future can be influenced by the choices we make in our own lives, including whether and how we choose to care for our spines.

The Story

For over 35 years now, I’ve been sharing the above information with everyone who would listen. As Dr. Christopher Kent, another of my mentors, expresses it, “We’re talking about sculpting the future of the destiny of mankind by educating people about their choices.” In my college days, we just called it, “telling the story.”

Consider yourself told.

Wishing you health, happiness and peace this Christmas season,

Dr. Frank Bowling

Is Upper Cervical Care Really That Simple?

Upper Cervical Care Is Easy To Understand

As experts on the upper cervical spine, upper cervical doctors focus on the intimate relationship between the top two bones in the neck, called the upper cervical spine, and, more importantly, a vital portion of the nervous system called the brain stem. This relationship is absolutely essential to the body’s ability to restore and preserve health.

In order to grasp the upper cervical concept, you must first understand how the body is created and, more importantly, how it is designed to function normally and remain healthy

The brain stem controls and coordinates virtually every vital function of the body and acts as a conduit between the brain and the body. It extends from the brain down through an opening in the base of your skull and into the upper cervical region. Working much like a telephone cable, the brain stem has millions of individual wires, or nerve fibers, that send signals back and forth between the brain to every system, organ, muscle and cell within the body. We must have 100% brain-to-body communication in order to function properly and remain healthy.

The top two bones in the neck, the atlas and axis, are the only two vertebrae in the entire spine that don’t have an intervertebral disc. They are designed to move in six directions and are considered freely movable. By contrast, every other bone in the spine, from the 3rd vertebra all the way down to the bottom, not only have a disc but also four inter-locking joints that only allow the bones to move in 2 directions. As a result, the top two freely movable bones are much more susceptible to misalignment.

If one of the upper two bones becomes misaligned, two things happen. First and foremost, it irritates or interferes with the brain stem and reduces the brain-to-body communication. Wherever those messages were intended to go, whether it’s your foot, kidney, pancreas, heart, lungs, eyes or ears, it is going to malfunction in some way, subtle or obvious. Secondly, consider the upper spine as part of a kinetic chain, connected from head to toe. If either of the top two bones becomes misaligned, the rest of the body must compensate or adapt, resulting in total “body imbalance”. In the end, your health and physical body will be compromised. This is called head/neck misalignment.

Every healing profession acknowledges that the body has an inborn or innate ability to heal itself. By restoring these healing messages, your body will operate closer to its potential from the top, down and from the inside, out.

See...Upper Cervical Care is that simple.

How To Misalign Your Head And Neck...Let Me Count The Ways

(Editor's Note:  Fifty to be exact and this is far from a complete list but it gets you thinking about why it is important to be checked periodically.)

by Dr. Deborah Sesker

In a perfect world, none of us would have been born by forceps, or by Cesarean, or with the doctor pulling with too much force on our heads.

In a perfect world, none of us would have fallen off the side of the bed when we were two, tripped down the stairs at age eight, or rolled our car in the ditch at eighteen.

But these things happen. And when they do they often stress the muscles and ligaments of the upper neck to the point where the bones misalign and lock-down, placing stress on the spinal column and the delicate nervous system inside.

If we were lucky enough to have our parents take us to an upper cervical doctor at a young age, we might have only lived with our neck misalignment for days, weeks, or maybe a few years before having it properly corrected.

But most of us aren’t, which means many of us live one, two, or six decades before we ever have our atlas unlocked by our upper cervical doctor. By this time ligaments are tightened, muscles have developed amnesia, and we have patterns of movements which place stress on the top of our spine without us even knowing.

All of this is to say, that even a really good upper cervical correction may not hold very well, especially in the beginning of our care. And if we want to make the most of our upper cervical  care, we’re going to need to be careful what we do on a day to day basis.  Here are 50 simple ways you could lose your upper cervical alignment.

    Sleeping on your stomach.

    Sleeping on your side without proper neck support.

    Reading in bed with a book on your chest.

    Watching television in bed with your chin on your chest.

    Falling asleep on the arm of the couch.

    Falling asleep upright in a chair.

    Falling asleep upright in a chair and waking up with an ear resting on one shoulder.

    Falling asleep anywhere other than your bed.

    Propping your head up on your hands, fist or palm under your jaw, for more than a few seconds at a time.

    Looking up for more than a minute at a a time, be it stargazing, birdwatching, or painting a ceiling.

    Stretching your neck by pushing it forward, backward, or pulling it to the the side with your hands.

    Having anyone else push or pull your head to stretch your neck.

    Stretching your neck by rolling your head in big circles.

    Staring down at a Smart Phone screen or tablet for hours everyday.

    Gripping a phone between your ear and your shoulder, instead of using headset or speaker phone.

    Having a small child hang from your neck.

    Having a small child jump on your head while wrestling in the living room.

    Having anyone hang from your neck or jump on your head.

    Whipping your head to the left or right or up and down while dancing, head-banging, or whatever it is you might be doing.

    Flipping your hair repeatedly to remove it from your face.

    Shaking your hair out to help dry it after a shower.

    Turning your head without moving your shoulder to look behind you while driving.

    Driving and hitting anything going more than five miles per hour.

    Driving and getting hit by anyone else going more than five miles per hour, for that matter.

    Getting into your small sedan by craning your neck to one side to sit down over and over again, instead of sitting down facing outward, and then rotating your body inward.

    Getting elbowed in the face while playing basketball, volleyball, tag, or any other amateur sport.

    Standing on your head.

    Heading a soccer ball.

    Smacking your own forehead.

    Falling on an outstretched hand.

    Doing a somersault improperly.

    Doing a cartwheel improperly.

    Doing certain yoga positions improperly.

    Doing ab crunches with your hands behind your head.

    Landing on your head from any height.

    Boxing.

    Martial arts with bad form.

    Bench pressing and watching your biceps, not the bar.

    Squatting and lifting your chin as you fatigue.

    Lifting without tucking your chin at work, at home, or anywhere.

    Getting dental work.

    Popping your own neck.

    Having someone else pop your neck.

    Chewing gum all day.

    Cracking a tooth.

    Deep tissue massage in the neck.

    Getting your hair washed, dyed, or dried backward in a salon sink.

    Getting into a pillow fight.

    Getting placed in a head-lock

    Getting up, turning over, or moving your body by leading with the head and neck, and not with the pelvis.

Does doing any one of these 50 things mean you’re going to need another adjustment? Not necessarily. Everyone is a little bit different. (Some kids have played high school football without losing their alignment.)

But they are common ways that you can set your upper cervical care backwards, and they’re worth considering if you’re having a hard time holding your alignment.

Health, Gravity And Upper Cervical

adapted from: Health and Gravity

by Dr. Michael D. Thomas, NUCCA doctor

Years ago I had found a quote from Roger Sperry, who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology in 1981.  Sperry noted that 90% of the brain’s energy is used in relating the physical body to gravity.  Only 10% has to do with thinking, metabolism, and healing.  -Did you have any idea it was such a big percentage?

This means that when we are out of upper cervical alignment and our posture has become disordered, we are using valuable energy to just hold ourselves upright that ideally goes into thinking, metabolism and immune function.

How many of us feel fuzzy headed, or brain fog when we are out of adjustment?

Does your digestion change?

How about sleep patterns?

Most of us already know about the multitude of aches and pains that can be associated with being out of upper cervical alignment.  What you may not realize though, are the real problems that will eventually accumulate when we must chronically use our precious energy to adapt to being out of line.  Upper cervical misalignment can be a progressive and degenerative problem.

Fortunately, many of you also realize the incredible change that can take place when the upper cervical misalignment is corrected.  So many folks who come in for care have told me over the years about the incredible turn around that occurred when they got corrected and made the commitment to stay in alignment.  There are many who tell me they would not be walking if not for upper cervical care.

I find that upper cervical care is truly primary health care.  What I mean by this is that removing nervous system interference at the upper cervical area (top of the neck) is a critical step in the improvement of health.  Many of my patients have been able to wean themselves off not just pain medications, but many other medications that they’d had to take on a long term basis because of the troubling symptoms that may have developed due to long term upper cervical misalignment.  They just didn’t have the debilitating problems anymore.  They could begin to refocus back on their life.  And, the money they were spending on these suppressive drugs could be better spent in other areas of their life!

Some folks use the upper cervical correction like they do the emergency  room.  They only come in when they are in terrible trouble and want a quick and miraculous ‘fix’.  The upper cervical correction can often give them this ‘fix’ but the effects of living out of alignment for weeks and months takes it toll.  The upper cervical misalignment is a problem even more so the longer that it is there.  Once you are out of alignment, problems will slowly or not so slowly, begin to pile up.  Arthritis could be one part of the many attempts by your body to adapt to being twisted and unlevel.  Poor posture is another possibility and tends to wear down the joints and create inflammation and pain.

The upper cervical correction is our Health’s best friend.  Getting checked periodically through out the year is a wonderful and cost effective way to stay healthy and allow your inner wisdom the chance to work to its fullest.