BY NORM TOLLINSKY
How you hold your head has a lot to do with our overall health, according to Northern Ontario’s only practising chiropractor specializing in upper cervical work.
Misalignment of the atlas, the uppermost cervical vertebra of the spine, affects blood pressure and can cause headaches, dizziness, vision problems and even allergies, claims Dr. Aaron Stauber, a graduate of the Palmer College of Chiropractic.
Originally from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Stauber moved to Sudbury in 2003 with his Sudbury-born wife who was a classmate at Palmer.
The importance of the atlas and the consequences of its misalignment are attributable to its location next to the base of the brain stem.
“Upper cervical docs joke about getting your head on straight, but if the bone is misaligned and not sitting in the proper position…if it’s pushed up too far or laterally misaligned, it can create problems,” said Stauber.
Blood pressure
The effect on blood pressure was revealed in a study carried out by Dr. Marshall Dickholtz, Stauber’s teacher at the Palmer School of Chiropractic. According to Stauber, a family doctor noticed that several of his patients with high blood pressure who had been seeing Dickholtz for upper cervical adjustments were registering lower numbers.
Intrigued by the report, Dickholtz set up a study with 50 subjects. Half of them received a real upper cervical correction and the other half received a sham adjustment, said Stauber. Because the adjustment is so gentle, the patients were unable to tell which group they were in. None of the patients took blood pressure medication during the eight-week trial.
“What they saw was that in patients who received the real adjustment, there was an average drop of 14 points in the systolic pressure and an average of eight millimeters of mercury drop in the diastolic pressure. That’s the same effect as two blood pressure medications.”
Surprised at the findings, further studies were carried out confirming the results. “It was very conclusive that something was going on there,” said Stauber.
Not a lot of people know about upper cervical work, he said. “Most people think that as chiropractors, we’re going to take your neck and crunch it. That’s not how upper cervical docs work. It’s a very delicate and precise adjustment…patients rarely feel that anything has happened. Basically, what we’re doing is aligning the atlas so it sits properly at the base of the skull.”
Back problems
The patients Stauber sees don’t go to him because they have high blood pressure. “They come to see me because they have a bad back, migraine headaches, numbness and tingling or neck pain, but once the head gets on straight, there’s very little other adjusting that needs to be done to the rest of the body.”
If the head is shifted off centre, said Stauber, the body’s natural righting reflex compensates through a drop in the shoulder or a curve of the spine, resulting in back pain.
X-rays taken prior to treatment reveal the extent of the misalignment and the correction required, which is performed manually or by applying mild percussive force using an upper cervical stylus.
Repeated adjustments aren’t always necessary, said Stauber.
“I don’t see my patients all that often. The idea is to make the adjustment and let the body figure out its natural centre. What I try to do is work on stabilizing it and (give patients) exercises to train the body to hold the head up straight.”
Stauber guesses that a lot of people are walking around with a misaligned atlas. “Anyone who goes through life deals with issues with their spine,” he said. “A large percentage of children are born with upper cervical misalignments, which isn’t surprising considering the amount of pulling and twisting that happens when a baby is born.”
Perfect alignment of the atlas is probably as common as perfect alignment of one’s teeth, said Stauber.
“People go through life brushing their teeth because they know it’s good for them. The same holds true for the spine…and the spine, especially the upper part of your neck, is a lot more important than your teeth. There’s a reason why people’s shoulders come up around their ears when they’re scared. The body naturally protects your neck because it’s so vital to your health.”
Testimonials
Stauber has several video testimonials on his website from grateful patients.
“I have had patients who got their sense of smell back. Their vision improves, they sleep better and have better digestion. All of these things happen just by getting their head on straight.
“Anybody who has had a good upper cervical adjustment says it’s like turning your lights on and feeling like, wow.”
Very few chiropractors are trained to perform upper cervical adjustments and few schools of chiropractic place much emphasis on it, in some cases because they “feel the public won’t go for it,” said Stauber.
Medical doctors who send patients to him “think it’s great and see the results.
“I can’t speak for them, but I get a lot of referrals,” he said.
www.drstauber.com
