I need to share this, because I have become so much more in tune with so many of you, and I hate it! I am a chiropractor because I had low back problems that were disabling at times. They started when I was 17, and came to a serious debilitating condition at 24. I started into the chiropractic lifestyle, and I have slowly improved ever since (get that “slowly” word, I have literally seen health improvements every single year, slowly progressing in all areas over time… not immediately overnight).
So to say this the most complete way, I have had a lot of sympathy for my low back pain patients over the years. The thing is, for all of you headache people, I had kind of forgotten the feeling of a headache, light headed, sinus problem condition. Don’t get me wrong, I know headaches. I had them in my pre-teen years, that were so bad I would come home from school and sleep. They were awful, and I was so happy when they stopped (randomly, I changed nothing). And how about when I ruptured my eye (I know, some of you who are new to my practice don’t know that I am blind in my left eye… yes, completely); when that hockey puck hit me, it literally exploded my eye. I bled from it for over an hour, and everything around it swelled up significantly. My sinuses felt overfilled for six months, headaches were daily from the pressure; not to mention the dizziness from trying to absorb the world through one eye. Oh, I surely know headaches… but not the kind that you can only point your finger of blame at nature.
I have had mild sinus irritation over the “Atlanta” years, but nothing that ever lasts. Usually the spring provides me with a horse voice for the first hour of the day over a 4 week period, but only once before did it hit me with a head symptom, and then it lasted about a week. Right now, looking back, I have about four straight weeks of head pressure/headache, and it has only just now subsided since returning from my vacation. So let me tell you how it all happened.
I was at the gym (The Garage) on a Sunday, working out with Wes, one of the other owners. We were doing push presses (pressing the weight overhead, but using a little push with a dip and rive of the legs) along with double unders (jump ropes). I was about half way through the wokout when I suddenly had a severe headache in the left side of my head, with a sharp pain in my neck at my atlas on the left. This pain in both my head and neck continued for about a week, regardless of the repetitive adjustments that I received (though I would get a reduction of symptoms following adjustments). The pain in my head would ramp up significantly during exercise, and would then stay for hours afterwards.
This all made perfect sense to me, as the relationship between vascular sufficiency and the atlas is a direct relationship, and it had been compromised. What also made sense to me, but absolutely frustrated me (just like all of you who have dealt with these issues for years), was the sinus pressure that started to build as soon as the pollen count increased. Why does it make sense, your immune system and subsequently the mucous membranes of your immune system (present in your sinuses), is under the control of nerves from atlas and axis (C2). What I found to be interesting however, was that as I started to accomodate to the local pollen (last Thursday before leaving for New Orleans), I was completely unable to cope with the stress of a new pollen in Louisiana (had an immediate increase in pressure on my way to the B&B from the airport).
Oh how frustrating, when you are just overcoming the symptom, then to have it return. Well, the last day in NO I started to feel a bit better. Then I flew home (which I don’t really handle well anyways since messing up my eardrums years ago in a diving incident), but within an hour of being home, I was feeling better. Then I got in the car and drove to Orlando, and sure enough… BOOM, it was back! Try taking your kids on spinning, twirling rides with a head full of pain and pressure… not good. Thankfully, I have a wife who loves that stuff to, so she saved me from the worst of it. I did hit a few rides, and I paid.
So the culmination, is the celebration. Got back and home, and viola, it is all good! The good news, is that my neck went from being in constant pain, to no pain, and my atlas palpates (feels) about 90% better. So though the subluxation was a Sinus Subluxation (which is also a subluxation that if it had lasted would be wrecking my immune systems ability to fight cancer too), it was a very temporary subluxation.  For some of you, who have had these subluxations for thirty years.. it will not likely come so easy, and there will be times of regression, but the path to healing is there, and it lies right at the bse of your skull!
Peace and blessings! Dr. E