A Letter From A Skeptical Patient Of Upper Cervical Care

Editor's note: Today's post is about a patient's experience while under Upper Cervical Care. The method used was NUCCA.

A letter from a patient

by Dr. Deb Sesker

Note: This letter comes from a patient named Robyn, who has received NUCCA care for the last five years. She sent this to us via email in January of 2011.

Deb Sesker and NUCCA has completely changed my life. I have had chronic back pain since I was 9 years old after I was kicked behind my right ear by my horse. Then, at 15, I fell on the ice and broke my tailbone. Between the ages of 16 and 21, I was in five major car accidents where all vehicles were totalled. At 36, I was rear-ended by a teenage driver talking on her cell phone, and suffered whiplash.

I have spent thousands of dollars at conventional chiropractors, hours at acupuncturists and physical therapists, and even considered back surgery.

The surgeon refused to operate on me because he said I had a herniated disc and degenerative arthritis in my lower back. He said, “If I operate on you, you will be in a wheelchair within 5 years. You just need to learn how to live with the pain (and, by the way, here are some pain pills).” I walked away from the pain pills but was very depressed that I was still unable to find a cure.

My life was an everyday struggle because of the pain in my lower back. I literally cried every single day because I still had to work and make a living, and sitting at a computer all day was excruciating. I taught aerobics and rode on RAGBRAI and lived my life but suffered through it the whole time. I was determined I wasn’t going to let this pain ruin me, but I still suffered terribly.

One day a friend of mine told me that a coworker had come to work literally exclaiming with joy that he had found a miracle! Jumping up and down! The coworker told my friend that Deb Sesker and NUCCA had changed his life. He had been in constant back pain for five years and was now miraculously pain free! My friend called me immediately and the minute I hung up the phone with him I called Deb at Balance First. I begged her to see me the next day.

I have to admit I had a tremendous amount of skepticism about all of this because I had tried so many other avenues of relief to absolutely no avail. Quick fixes that gave me a few days of relief and then back to the chiropractor again; always worried that I couldn’t do any activity to my full potential for fear of aggravating my pain. I had been disappointed so many times that I was incredibly skeptical.

BUT, without hope there is nothing, so I always kept the faith that I would find the fix. And I found her!

I have lived a very different life after my first visit five years ago. Except for the occasional visit back to Deb for an adjustment because of self-injury (mistakenly shoveling snow, haphazardly climbing trees, or lively yard work), I live virtually pain-free. I, too, have had a miracle!! I can do all the activities I love to do; gardening, hiking, biking, sitting pain-free at a two-hour concert, or just watching a movie on my couch. Life is good.

Make sure to look at the diplomas on her walls. She was valedictorian of her class at Palmer College of Chiropractic at the wonderful age of 39. She is the epitome of what a doctor should be. She genuinely cares for her patient’s health and well-being, and is also a Take Shape for Life Regional Director. She cares about the whole person and will be able to counsel you in many different areas of your life.

I believe in Deb and NUCCA so much that every member of my family has been adjusted by her and THEIR lives have been changed, as well. In my line of business, I have had an inordinate number of opportunities to talk to complete strangers, and in the course of conversation, I discover that these people are in back pain. Maybe it is because I am so aware of how it affects everyday life, or I can see pain in their face when I am talking to them; for whatever reason, I discover they are in back pain. In the past five years, I would estimate that I have encouraged, and literally begged at times, 100 people to visit Deb. I KNEW she could change their lives. Quite a few of those people have contacted me later and thanked me for sharing Deb with them. They, too, had found a miracle!

–RLW

(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.)

Excruciating Low Back Pain and Upper Cervical Care

From: A Day in the Life Vol 6
By Dr. Jack Stockwell
Appeared in the August 2007 Palmer Beacon

Being an upper cervical doctor is not as easy as one would think when dealing with the whole human frame. It is often thought that the only way we, upper cervical docs, can influence a spine is to adjust the top bone and “hope” that somehow this can “spread” throughout the body in some mystical magical way.

Consider Patrick's case. He came into my office on all fours, literally. He was presenting with, as many a chiro calls it, a “hot” lumbar. Somewhere in his lumbosacral complex hell was breaking loose and coming after his poor self. I could barely hear his cries for a quick and painless death through his screams for help.

We had helped his brother earlier and he did not want to go to the emergency room, as a close friend had recently died under trauma care in a nearby hospital, for, I must say, a completely unrelated condition of the heart. We were his only option and we had never before met. But there he was. On the floor crying. Too weak to stand. Too subluxated to do anything for himself. Somehow he showed up in my consultation room with his knees bent over the couch with his face in pillows.

He was able to calm down a little sitting in my x-ray chair waiting for films. His pain had been coming on for a little while but not nearly this severe. He is a golfer. He is also a very wealthy fellow owning a chain of thirteen home improvement stores. He is in his fifties, overweight by thirty pounds, and has the worthless diet of the modern teenager he thinks he is.

I took films and analyzed them and determined a vector to correct his upper cervical misalignment. “His upper cervical misalignment you ask?” Yes. That is where I start. I told him I didn't know if I could help him or not. I said that the worst thing I could do would be to kill him and he said, “bring it on!”

I worked on him for a few minutes and took him back to the x-ray room for more films as I had to be sure I got it all and that there was no misalignment left, detectable on x-ray. He was still crying. He could bend his leg, but still crying.

I told him the seriousness of his condition and that if it was as bad as I thought, he could lose urinary and bowel control. I told him he needed to go to a MRI imaging center that I send patients to and get his lumbar spine examined as soon as possible. He was still crying.

The post x-rays revealed a rather admirable correction to the spine. I was happy. I said, “Patrick, get to Western Neurological immediately. I will call them and tell them you are coming. Go now. Do not pass GO, do not collect 200 bucks. Go now.” To my amazement, he took himself promptly from my office and went where I sent him. I asked the radiologist for an immediate reading, he promised one by the next afternoon.

This was a late Friday afternoon and I told Patrick to return Monday morning for more care. Saturday the radiologist called my cell phone and gave me his report, which report I have Patrick's permission to share. The herniations of the bottom three discs were of such a nature and to such a degree that he could not tell where the free-floating fragments of formerly whole discs had originated.

There was pressure against several nerves from L3 to L5 and a severe decrease in space in the neural canal. Wow…I was right about the urinary and bowel stuff. The resultant twisting of the pelvis out of its normal relationship to the sacrum was putting severe muscular pressure against the sacral nerves as well. Hence the feeling of his feet being crushed. This man was meat for the RD's (real doctors).

I told him, that Saturday afternoon, that his golfing days were over and that he had some major surgery ahead of him as he needed some serious fusions in his low back, and that I would have a surgeon to refer him to by Monday morning, two days later. He said, in all seriousness, “I thought you could fix this, my brother said you could, my mother said you could, and my sister, all of whom you have helped, said you could. So, are you giving up on me already?” All I could think was “I guess so”. I didn't answer him, I just told him to come in Monday morning.

Monday morning he walked into the office under his own power and could bend over and touch his toes. His legs were even, his pelvis was level. His shoulders were now level as well. His head and neck were straight. His anatometer readings were completely in the green. His pain level had dropped from a 10/10 to a 2/10.

He checked clear and I did not work on him, as there was nothing to work on. I told him to come back that Thursday, as I would probably work on him then. He didn't show. He didn't come in because he was playing a warm up round for a golf tournament in Mesquite, NV., that was to begin the following day. He played all three rounds of eighteen holes each day, the first round being played one week after he received one upper cervical adjustment.

How is that possible? Easy. Child's play. Body balance controlled by the upper cervical spine. Patrick's experience was three years ago. I have worked on him less than six times in three years. His testimonial is featured in my office brochure. And one more thing, his experience is typical of upper cervical care. I have many cases like Patrick's. I have come to believe that the pain does not come from the herniated disc. The herniation is just a symptom of a subluxated spine. Reduce the subluxation, the pain goes away, while the herniation remains, to heal over time.

Such a little touch, such powerful results! Upper Cervical Care is amazing!

Disc Problems in Neck and Upper Cervical Care

MANAGEMENT OF CERVICAL DISC HERNIATION WITH UPPER CERVICAL CHIROPRACTIC CARE
Kirk Eriksen, D.C.

Objective: To discuss the chiropractic management of a patient suffering from multiple complaints, including a herniated nucleus pulposus in the cervical spine diagnosed by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).

Clinical Features: A 34 yr old man suffered from severe neck, lower back and radicular pain of 1 yr duration. He had previously received care from multiple medical specialists with little or no results. An MRI of the cervical spine demonstrated a C6-C7 herniated nucleus pulposus. A needle electromyogram examination confirmed the presence of a C6-C7 radiculopathy with radiculopathetic changes from C4-C7. X-ray analysis showed that the atlas and axis were misaligned. These X-rays were read manually (with a template) and with computer-assisted digitization. Computerized analysis also measured misalignments at the levels of L4-L5.

Intervention and Outcome: The patient was managed primarily with the Grostic Procedure of upper cervical adjusting by hand. After a period of about 1 month, a series of re-examinations revealed a dramatic improvement in all subjective and objective findings. A follow-up of greater than 1 yr has shown that surgery was not necessary.

Conclusion: This single case study suggests that chiropractic care may be a viable treatment option for patients with cervical disc herniation. Further investigation into chiropractic adjustments and this condition should be pursued (J Manipulative Physiol Ther 1998: 21:51-6).