Children's Conditions & How Upper Cervical Chiropractic Can Help

Upper Cervical Chiropractic has been proven to help children with colic, chronic ear infections, and more.

If I could just take care of children all the time, I would. No offense to you adults, but children are really fun to take care of.  The thing is, children usually don’t need chiropractic care. However, they should be checked because if they do need it, we want to make the corrections while they’re young so they don’t grow crooked. 

If children don't need upper cervical care, that’s great and that’s the best thing possible. When they’re born, children’s bones are still soft and not totally solidified so they can take a lot of tumbles without sustaining any major damage. There are obviously limits to this. For example, sometimes if a child has some type of in-utero constraint before they’re born, that can cause a neck injury. If a child is born by C-Section, it often becomes a neck injury. A difficult or prolonged vaginal birth also can cause a neck injury. Since the body is meant to take a lot of these stresses, most children are fine when they are born. 

One of the things that give us a clue that a child may have a problem early in life or infancy, is colic. Colic is one of the big things, also when the head twists and they can’t seem to straighten out, often seems to be related. Another sign can be when a baby isn’t nursing well on one side. What we've found is that usually, those children have a neck issue that, once corrected, the neck muscles relax, the muscles in the digestive system relax, and everything starts doing their jobs properly. 

Another symptom that’s usually seen in children as they get a little older is chronic ear infection. However, it’s important to make the distinction between ear infections every once in a while or getting sick every once in a while, versus a chronic condition. Getting sick on occasion is a baby’s natural immunity being built, and it’s important to their overall health as they get older. If a child doesn’t get sick occasionally or if they live in a hermetically sealed environment, they are probably going to grow up and have lots of other issues. But, occasional ear infection or getting sick is perfectly normal.  We just want to ride those out, and give them proper nutrition. Try not to have to give them any drugs that will inhibit them from developing an immune response. 

HERE’S THE DIFFERENCE: If your child develops a chronic ear infection, perhaps their pediatrician is saying they need to use tubes in the ears – In my experience, this is most often a neck problem. Every child that I’ve had come into my office with these issues have seen their symptoms clear up. When we find a neck problem, we corrected the neck problem. The immune system corrects itself, and the body starts functioning properly. In children, the eustachian tubes (the connection between the tongue and the back of the throat) that should remain clear, are fairly straight. Therefore they don’t drain properly and can get ear infections. But, if they get chronic ear infections, a lot of times the muscles around them tighten and so it blocks things. If the neck is out of alignment, the adjustment we make allows those eustachian tubes to open back up again and properly drain. 

Another issue I’ve seen commonly in children a little bit older than the toddler is the bed-wetting. Often that’s just because you know that those children should be able to sleep through the night without wetting their bed. There can be many issues that can cause bedwetting, but one of them does seem to be a neurological issue caused by a problem in the neck. I’ve had some patients come in as children, I’ve adjusted them, and its cleared up, I’ve had some where it hasn’t, it was some other issue but they did have some neck problem and it may have been part of the whole equation. 

If your child is experiencing colic, chronic ear infections, or any of the other symptoms and conditions listed above, we would love to see how we can help. Upper Cervical Chiropractic care has shown tremendous success in helping to eliminate these issues in children.  At Blair Chiropractic Clinic, we want to fix the problem 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.  

https://www.blairchiropractic.com/

https://www.uppercervicalcare.com/healthconditions

My big pain in the neck

Warning: This is long, and yet this is my story extremely abbreviated.

If you have pain anywhere in your body and you don’t know what to do, you may relate, and it may be worth reading until the very end.

When I was 6 years old, I remember crying because the bottom of my back hurt so bad I had to stop what I was doing. Today I am 46. I can still remember the sharp pains where my hips attached to the spine radiating out from the middle.

In elementary school,

I almost always missed most of December and all the fun Christmas preparations and parties. Why? Pneumonia, Bronchitis, Sinus infections, high fevers, you name it. When other people got a cold, I would come down with severe, stubborn infections. I remember spending days and nights in my parents’ bed. My mom didn’t want me to be left unattended due to the high fevers.

In 4th grade, we had music right after lunch. Every week half way through class my head would start to pound so horrendously that I could not hold the tears back. I would be sent home.

February 5th grade: The left side of my upper back (all around my shoulder blade) locked up and swelled up. It felt like a knife stabbing me at every breath. Any movement was unbearable. Three weeks of school was lost while I mostly laid flat on my back between doctor’s appointments. My most vivid memory from this period wasgetting a shot directly into the center of the worst muscle spasm. The tears flew uncontrollably out of my eyes. This was done with the intention of pain relief, but the traumatic experience changed nothing. It seemed like this episode connected my headaches to my lower back pain. Everything between my face, forehead, across the top of my head, the back of my head, neck, shoulder blades and into my lower spine never stopped from that day.

People say they get headaches or backpain.

Not me. I had a headache. An 18-year headache.

It would vary in intensity but never go away. The best it ever got was always annoying and exhausting. At worst I could not get out of bed or sit or be in the light. I could not finish speaking sentences because of the intense pain. During this time and onward I would have recurring nightmares at night that there was a tumor inside my upper spine that was killing me. During the day I just felt like there was pressure on the nerves in my upper neck. Whenever I would express this to doctors they would just say “that can’t happen.”

I could continue sharing these vivid memories and all the details. For weeks my neck locked up so I could not turn my head at all. You could not see where my neck stopped and shoulders started because it was so inflamed. For a couple of years I could not hold a pen or sign my name with my dominant hand due to severe tennis elbow. (If only I could have played tennis.) I could describe in detail the discouragement during the six months I could not taste any of my food.  It was a sinus infection that the doctors and antibiotics were not able to tame. Or all the terrible memories of 10 months straight with severe hives. Swollen itchy bumps covered my body from the bottoms of my feet to the inside of my mouth and even my eyelids. On several occasions, I had to go to the emergency room. I carried medication in my purse in case the swelling would be in a place that would keep me from breathing.

Do I need to say I was desperate? Depressed?

My parents, myself and later my husband all were trying everything.

I have been through tests, specialists and treatment methods both traditional and alternative. I even went to a Chiropractor and decided never to do that again as I had never been worse than right after my chiropractic manipulation.

After all those years of trying everything, it would be easy to give up.
I am glad I didn’t give up.

At age 22 I moved with my husband from Norway to California. My husband had been seeing Dr. Muncy, a Blair upper cervical chiropractor since he was 10 years old. He wanted me to see him and thought he could probably help me.
He knew about my terrible previous experience with a Chiropractor, but I trusted him. Besides I had heard how much help my mother- in- law had been helped with her severe headaches. After trying everything for so long the decision to go to another expert was tricky. I desperately wanted help. I also didn’t want to waste my money, time and get my hopes up once again for something that didn’t help.

Here’s what happened when I went in for my upper cervical appointment:

The Dr. wanted to run some tests before I told him what was going on because he wanted to keep it objective. The tests didn’t hurt. After 5 minutes he gently touched the place in my upper neck that I was having nightmares about. He said: “You have a bone out of alignment right here and it is putting pressure on the nerves that lead to the rest of the body”

Finally a Doctor who saw the origin of the pain problem.

He took some X-Rays and made a precision adjustment based on what he saw. Then he adjusted 3 bones in my neck and explained how extremely rare it would be to have 3 misalignments. I was told I must have had a trauma to my neck when I was little. This is consistent with what I know. It also explains why my health problems started when I was just a little girl. The adjustments didn’t hurt at all, unlike my previous experience. Inside me, I felt like something relaxed a little. I slept through the whole night for the first time in my life.

A healing process had begun.

My symptoms didn’t go away overnight, but clearly, I was getting gradually better instead of gradually worse.

I was actually improving, not just managing my pain. A few years after this first adjustment I had an A-Ha moment in the car driving home from the gym and grocery store: “I have no pain! My muscles don’t ache. MY HEAD DOESN’T HURT.” This day was the end of my 18year headache. I wish I could say I have never had them since. Unfortunately, I still get headaches when my neck slips back out of alignment, but they go away or get a lot better when I get put back in alignment.

Moving Forward:

It turned out that the injuries in my neck were substantial enough and had been going on long enough that I have some permanent damage.  I will require lifetime maintenance Chiropractic care. The good news about this is that because of this husband, Gordon decided to devote his life to taking care of me and others like me. He continues after almost 20 years as an Upper Cervical Chiropractor to study hard so he can always improve and help even the most stubborn health problems. It is our purpose in life to help as many people as possible have as much healing as possible, first in California and now in Lubbock, TX. We moved to Lubbock because this is where Dr. Blair made the discoveries that led to my health. This is where we feel we can make the most impact to do the same. I feel deeply on my own body the difference between pain and desperation that chokes off all hope versus life flowing healing powers that live in my own body.

If you have been reading all this, there is a good chance you have questions. Maybe questions about me or possibly you have questions about the Blair Upper Cervical technique that got me started on the way to health. Do you have questions about your own situation? It will make me happy to discuss this with you. Feel free to call me or E-mail from anywhere, or make an appointment if you live in Lubbock. If you do not live in Lubbock, I will be happy to help you find the closes upper cervical doctor to where you live. I was able to find help and you can too!

Posted in Chiropractic Clinic, Conditions, Kids, Upper Cervical Doctor and tagged Blair Chiropractic Clinic, blair upper cervical, bronchitis, children, depressed, exhausted, headaches, healing process, hip pain, hives, inflammation, low back pain, Lubbock, misalignment, neck pain, nerve pressure, out of alignment, pneumonia, shoulder pain, sinus infections, tendinitis, tennis elbow

Kids and Chiropractic

What is more precious than a child? What does a parent want more than to make sure that their child is healthy, happy and strong?

Kids need good food, good sleep, mental stimulation and plenty of exercise. The foundation of all these things is the brain as it guides and makes us of these resources to grow a strong, straight and healthy body as well as a resilient mind.

One of the first things an embryo develops is the nervous system, made up of the brain and nerves, in order to guide the growth of the fetus. It continues to control and coordinate every part of the body throughout life.

The neck is the weakest part of the spine, and it carries the most nerves to and from your brain and the rest of your body!

A neck injury, from delivery, sports, a car accident, playing, can cause a neck bone to move and get stuck in such a way that it blocks some nerve flow right at the base of the brain. There is over 10 billion nerves at the top of the neck! When something interferes with those nerves, it can cause health problems anywhere else in the body.

After a neck injury, the body will begin to twist in order to relieve as much pressure as possible from the base of the brain. This can lead to scoliosis and arthritis later in life.

The Solution Is To Fix the Mechanical Problem First!

Then let the body do what is was made to do and grow back into health.

All Chiropractors adjust the neck, but only Upper-Cervical Chiropractors take into account that no two bodies are made the same, therefore we can fix the problem without any twisting or popping at all!

Posted in Kids and tagged children, Chiropractic, exercise, health