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

What Can Upper Cervical Care Do For You?

NUCCA OUR TECHNIQUE

Health sciences agree that every single body function, regardless of how large or small, is controlled by electrical and chemical messages that travel back and forth from the brain to all parts of the body at the rate of thousands of messages per second.  These messages pass through the brain stem, which is an extension of the brain and is located at the top of the neck where the brain and spinal cord meet.   Dr. Roger Sperry, PhD., won the Nobel Prize by discovering that 90% of the brain’s activity is used to balance your body within the gravitational field of earth. He stated that if your body is mechanically distorted (off balance), it begins to effect the other 10% of the brain’s activity, which controls all the other body functions.

                               

Body Imbalance can put stress, tension and/or pressure on the brain stem and block or impede the flow of these vital messages to the body.

This interference can cause pain, sickness and suffering.

                                               

When Head Tilt develops and the body becomes imbalanced, "The Brain Stem" can be compressed, restricting the flow of health and healing messages from the brain to that part of the body serviced by these compressed nerves.  This can cause pain and suffering and decrease the quality of your life.

The NUCCA Spinal Correction, which is painless and barely felt by the patient, is a specialty in the field of chiropractic, designed to restore body balance and normalize the flow of healing messages from the brain to all parts of the body so it can reactivate it’s natural self-healing process.  The NUCCA spinal correction requires NO CRACKING, TWISTING OR POPPING OF THE NECK OR BACK.  This is possible because of the precise X-ray analysis using physics and mechanics to calculate the exact formula used for each spinal correction.  No two formulas are the same, each one is developed for the individual person.

Published research studies have shown that when body balance is restored, the body enters a healing cycle that alleviates pain and symptoms, elevates the immune system, increases blood and oxygen circulation, normalizes nervous system communication and creates more optimum body performance.

The Upper Cervical Spinal Correction procedure is designed to re-position the weight of the head (10 - 14 pounds) over the center of the neck to restore the body balance.

This procedure removes interference and reactivates the normal transmission of the brain messages to the affected part of the body, so the natural self-healing process can begin.

(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.)

Ear Pain And The NUCCA Correction?

(Editor's Note:  Today's post comes to us from Dr. Zachary Ward and Nucca News, enjoy!)

NUCCA Patient Spotlight

The ear bone's connected to the jaw bone? A surprising change after one NUCCA correction.

Usually ear pain in a child makes doctors think ear infection--but 10 year old Lauren's pain was different. After Lauren began complaining of ear pain, her mother, Renee, took her to the pediatrician who investigated the source of the earache, but found nothing wrong. "Since she had already been on antibiotics, and there was nothing wrong inside the ear, the doctor told me to give her Ibuprofen," said Renee. In spite of the doctor's diagnosis, the pain continued, and in fact, got worse.

Lauren described the pain as sharp stabbing deep in her right ear, which would quickly come and go, happening as often as four to five times per hour. The pediatrician said that a trip to ENT might be in order. Filing that in the back of her mind, Renee took her daughter to a NUCCA doctor instead.

When Dr. Zachary Ward heard Lauren's story, he suggested that the pain might be nerve related and might respond to a NUCCA correction. Dr. Ward evaluated Lauren and found tight musculature in her neck and shoulder, as well as a heat reading that showed an increased temperature around the atlas vertebrae on her left side. Lauren received a NUCCA correction on Friday morning, and by the end of that weekend, the pain subsided completely.

Something surprising also happened after the correction: the left side of Lauren's left jaw began to relax. "I asked Lauren, 'How come you never told me that your jaw was so tight on your left side'" Renee told the NUCCA News. "Lauren said, 'Mom I didn't know my jaw was that tight. It's been like that my whole life. I thought that was normal!'"

To make matters more interesting, Lauren has received orthodontia care since she was three years to correct jaw and teeth alignment issues related to a cleft palate. Until her NUCCA correction, Lauren and Renee had no idea that Lauren's ear and jaw health could be related to her neck.

"I was surprised how quickly things improved for Lauren, without using any kind of drugs or surgery." said Renee.

(Editor's note: Remember the objective of any type 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 ear pain or any other condition, disease or symptom.)