Case 5. My Neck is KILLING ME!!

1. Signs and Symptoms: Neck Pain All the Time! The neck pain is constant, waking her up from the sleep constantly more than 2~3 times through the night, painful when she initiates any motion on her neck like turning to the left and right or looking up or down,

2. Type of Trauma: Cannot recall specifically but vaguely can remember had fallen from the playground and landed on her head and neck area when she was 6 or 7.

3. Imaging findings: Hypoplastic occipital condyles and hypoplastic C1 transverse processes and atlanto-occipital subluxation.

4. Outcome: Patient improved 90% by 5th visit in 5 weeks time and by the 6th visit, complete remission, no more S/S at all. Visited few more times to monitor the progress and she was symptom free until the very last visit which was 2 months from the 6th visit.

Early 30 years old female visited Silverdale Chiropractic for her ongoing, chronic severe migraine headache and the severe neck pain. She constantly wants to wrap the neck around with her hands to support the head. She stated it feels like the head is compressing onto the neck. Cervical distraction test immediately relieved the headache and the neck pain but they came back the moment when the distraction force was disappeared.

CBCT revealed these findings.

1. Elevated Schmidt-Fischer Angle (+127 degrees) indicating hypoplastic occipital condyles.

2. Hypoplastic C1 Transverse processes.

3. Anterior displacement of the atlas in terms of occipital condyle on the right side.

4. Anterior displacement of the atlas in terms of the occipital condyle on the left side. Also notice how flat the atlanto-occipital joint is and the formation of the arcuate foramen.

Adjustments were made combination of an instruments and hands. (Manual adjustment but not the typical manipulative style ; NO joint cavitation with rotatory motion).

For the first couple of weeks, the signs and symptoms were fluctuating and then by the 5th visit, patient reported a significant improvement and completely disappeared by the 6th visit. She continued care just for monitoring and visited 3 more times over 2 months of periods and had no symptoms. The patient onset of the neck pain and the headache was since the time when she was in her teenager; ~12~14 years old without any specific cause. She was on such a strong pain medication to manage her symptoms (mostly just to have a decent sleep) for more than a decades and was very grateful that she no longer suffer from such an intense chronic pain.