How Can I Avoid Neck Disc Surgery?

You have been told that you have a disc bulge of 7 mm and it is putting pressure on your spinal cord. You have exhausted pain killers, injections, physical therapy, and chiropractors. Do you have to get surgery? Surgery, however, may help if other treatments fail or if symptoms worsen." Of course, surgical intervention is often times necessary.  

With that said many disc patients would avoid the knife if they could find a natural alternative to heal. In this article, we will discuss typical scenarios that lead to disc problems in the neck. Then we will discuss a little-known procedure that has been helping people recover from disc problems.Each year it is estimated that 800 thousand Americans undergo the knife for neck disc surgery. Many times surgery is the only option. However, it has been our experience practicing upper cervical care most patients who suffer from disc issues can heal through them with the proper Upper Cervical Corrective Care.  

Obviously there are multiple ways that neck disc problems develop. There are two main types of disc injuries. The first is caused by a sudden high impact injury that immediately ruptures the disc and causes a disc bulge. The second is the result of abnormal posture that predisposes the disc to bulge through repetitive injury. Since the majority of disc bulges are the result of the long-term weakening of the disc due to imbalanced posture this post will focus on this type of disc injury.

The upper neck houses the brain stem which is responsible for postural muscle tone. Once someone sustains a mechanical injury to the skull neck junction from minor car accidents, sports injuries, and other jolting injuries this causes the postural tone of the body to become imbalanced. Imbalance in posture leads to the body's weight being distributed unevenly and over time causes more "wear and tear" on the areas of imbalance.  

The daily stresses and strains of living over time unevenly introduce micro-tears to the discs. Typically the person has an "event" that triggers intense pain that signals that the disc bulge has impacted the spinal cord or spinal nerve. Most who have a disc injury in this manner think that the event that "caused" the first symptom was the cause without realizing that the process had been building for years.

Traditionally forms of treatment for disc bulges involve procedures that perform some type of traction. The hope it by tractioning the spine the disc will return to its normal shape. And indeed in some cases, this relieves the patients' pain. However, it does not address why the disc happened in the first place.

Upper Cervical chiropractic is concerned with correcting the underlying reason spinal and postural imbalance occurs in the first place. Correcting interferences to the spinal cord in the neck through precise, gentle correction, the spinal muscle tone can become more balanced. Muscle s that are tight can relax and not only can disc problems improve but also the overall body will function better. 

This process generally takes several months for stabilization and is not an overnight miracle. We have found in our offices that many patients come in for a particular condition and are happy to report that things that they did not know were related to their neck improvement. The most common health problems we see improve by correcting the upper cervical spine are vertigo, neck and back pain, insomnia, migraine headaches, fatigue, fibromyalgia, and more.