George, a 75-year-old male, came into our office in February with neck pain, throbbing headaches in the back of the head, decreased range of motion in the neck, left foot numbness, and left arm weakness. Some of these symptoms were a result of a stroke in 1993. George also said his head felt heavy and that he had a hard time holding it up. In January of 2017 George had started to develop what are known as "drop attacks" while traveling and flying on a plane. Drop attacks are episodes that can include: vertigo, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting. These left him exhausted with little to no energy and hearing loss in both ears. When we met George, he was having drop attacks every three or four days. He had been told that he may have Meniere's disease and was given a medication called meclizine to help with the drop attacks. They were occurring more and more frequently and the effect of the meclizine was wearing off faster and faster.
George's condition had gotten to the point that George couldn’t go out any more because of the unpredictability and frequency of his debilitating drop attacks. His daughters did some research online and found that Blair Upper Cervical Chiropractic care has helped with some Meniere's cases. George and his daughters decided it was time to try something different. When they came in for the initial evaluation, we measured George's posture, range of motion in his neck, balance, arm strength, and spinal misalignment in his upper cervical spine. By analyzing these tests and exams, we came up with best way to balance George's upper neck gently and carefully with a vectored correction. After his first correction we noticed that his energy increased, his balance improved, he had no more nausea, his neck pain decreased and his hearing started to return. George's gate was even better when he walked and stood.
After six months of upper cervical chiropractic care, George has only received four upper cervical corrections. We are happy to note that George is back to enjoying gardening, he has been able to return to work, has stopped taking his meclizine, his walking gate is more balanced, his energy is back, and he just got back from a vacation with his daughters where he flew on a plane without drop attacks or issues! You can even see that over time, he was able to stand with his feet closer together (see image below showing the difference between his initial posture picture in February and his latest posture picture taken in August).
If you know of someone suffering from Meniere's disease, vertigo nausea, vomiting, headaches or neck pain, an upper cervical specialist may be able help!
