Vertigo: An Alternative Treatment Method for This Condition

What is Vertigo?

Vertigo is a sensation of dizziness and instability that occurs without movement. While it’s normal to experience occasional bouts of dizziness, people suffering from vertigo typically report more severe and/or more frequent episodes, often leading to coordination issues, disorientation, and difficulty completing everyday tasks.

Signs and Symptoms of Vertigo

The primary symptom associated with vertigo is a feeling of dizziness or a sense that your surroundings are spinning when you’re stationary. Other frequently cited symptoms of vertigo include tinnitus, headaches, and nausea. 

How the Upper Cervical Spine Affects Vertigo

The most common cause of vertigo is dysfunction in the inner ear. In addition to its role in processing auditory signals, the inner ear is also responsible for maintaining the vestibular system, which is responsible for maintaining the body's balance and spatial orientation. 

A number of factors can lead to dysfunction in the inner ear. Vertebral misalignment in the upper cervical spine is one such factor. When one or more vertebrae in the upper cervical spine are out of alignment, the ensuing inflammation can cause soft tissue swelling and inflammation throughout the inner ear. Over time, this can lead to fluid build-up in the inner ear and eustachian tubes, disrupting nerve flow from the vestibular system and eventually triggering the onset of vertigo.

How Our Upper Cervical Treatment for Vertigo Works

Our in-house chiropractor, Dr. Gordon Elder, is an expert practitioner of the Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractic Technique. This method of chiropractic care leverages diagnostic imaging to gently re-align the upper cervical spine, restoring natural function to the spinal column and re-activating the body’s natural healing mechanisms. 

When treating vertigo, Dr. Elder employs a two-step approach to identifying and healing the condition. First, patients undergo a screening process that will determine whether a spinal misalignment may be causing their vertigo. Initial screening appointments generally last around 25–30-minutes. 

If a misalignment is detected, your initial consultation will be followed by another appointment whereupon Dr. Elder will use advanced 3-D imaging tools to pinpoint the exact angle and location of your vertebral misalignment. Afterwards, you’ll receive a full report on the results of your consultation, and you’ll have an opportunity to ask Dr. Elder any questions about your treatment options. 

To correct your misalignment, Dr. Elder will use a series of gentle, precise adjustment techniques to restore the misaligned vertebrae to their natural position, thereby reducing surrounding inflammation and encouraging normal nerve flow.

Following the initial adjustment, patients will return for regular, gradually spaced-out check-ups to ensure their adjustment has stayed in place for 3 months. Over the course of 3-5 months, most patients average between 10 and 15 appointments with Dr. Elder.  

If vertigo is preventing you from living a fulfilling life, get in touch today to speak with Dr. Elder about healing your upper cervical spine. Located in Lubbock, Texas, Blair Chiropractic Clinic also services Amarillo, Midland, Odessa, Abilene, El Paso in Texas, and Hobbs in New Mexico.

Published by Vic Belonogoff: A Blair Chiropractic doctor helped heal vertigo, among other conditions that Vic Belonogoff suffered from, and it gave him his life back. He continues to see an upper cervical chiropractor as a preventative measure. Vic Belonogoff is passionate about upper cervical chiropractic and how much it helps patients.

Arthritis & Upper Cervical Chiropractic Care | Dr. Gordon Elder

Dr. Gordon D. Elder of The Blair Chiropractic Clinic, Lubbock Texas explains how Upper Cervical Chiropractic can help reduce Arthritic pain.

Arthritis can come in many forms but the most common kind is caused by the body’s joints wearing away for one reason or another. Many times, this condition is caused by poor alignment, which makes a lot of sense; if your alignment is wrong, your joints are going to wear wrong.  This causes the inflammation, burning sensation, and pain that’s usually associated with arthritis.  This does not apply to ALL types of arthritis – for example, autoimmune arthritities like Rheumatoid arthritis is caused by a part of the body eating or disintegrating its own joints, which is a different issue.  At this time, we want to focus on arthritis that’s caused by cervical misalignment – which can be repaired over time with proper Upper Cervical Chiropractic Care.

Regardless of the type of arthritis you may have, chances are you’ve had the problem for much longer than your symptoms have been showing. Another one of the challenges associated with treating arthritis is that the problem doesn’t ‘start’ when the joints get hot and swollen.  These symptoms occur after years of the joint being worn down, which is what is causing the irritation and inflammation in the joint.  For example, many of our patients are amazed because we can look at an X-Ray of the neck and ask, “What happened to you 20 (or 50) years ago?”  We can even point out where the trauma occurred, since the X-Ray shows us where the arthritis is developed.

Contrary to what many people believe, having arthritis does NOT mean you’re old; it simply means you have an “old problem. We’ve seen relatively young patients with significant arthritis in their joints, and we’ve seen elderly patients who had virtually no arthritis until, for example, a spinal injury occurs. In these cases, when we fix the patient’s neck and take the pressure off the brainstem, their body starts to move back into the proper position. As this happens, we can relieve the pressure on those irritated joints.

Unfortunately, if the injury or damage has been there for a long time, some of the arthritic symptoms may be permanent. However, when a patient’s body is healthy enough to straighten things out, it has the ability to “work around” the damage. In many cases, people with arthritis can live fairly normal lives, not having to think about the pain of the arthritis because everything else is functioning properly and the body can compensate for the damage.  Upper cervical alignment can play a big role in this as well, because of how closely this area of the neck is associated with total body alignment.

If you or someone you know is experiencing severe pain from arthritis, we would love to see how we can help. Upper Cervical Chiropractic care has shown tremendous success in helping patients get back to normal, without being burdened by arthritic pain.  At Blair Chiropractic Clinic in Lubbock, TX , we want to fix the underlyingnproblem you’re having.  Our motto is “Find it, fix it, then leave it alone”.  Visit www.blairclinic.com or call (806) 747-2735 today to speak with a member of our staff about scheduling a screening.