Leg Pain | Can It Be Caused By Neck Trauma?
Leg pain is a very debilitating condition that can affect ones activities, sleep and overall entire lifestyle. Pain can be severe and have detrimental effects on their health. Leg pain is commonly treated with numerous different modalities whether it is therapy or medications. Commonly this therapy does not get to the true cause of why the pain in the leg is there in the first place. It is well known the that postural muscle tone is controlled in the upper Cervical spine. In the same way that conditions causing arm pain can be tied back to upper neck neurology the same is true for leg pain. Each of these leg pain conditions can be tied back to imbalances in muscle tone that leads to their development. When the upper neck is misaligned it alters spinal muscle tone and causes the head to be tilted to one side, one shoulder higher , and one hip higher compared to the other (fig.1) . What follows body imbalance can be disc problems in the low back, tight piriformis muscle, and sciatica. This is very similar to looking at abnormally worn tires on your car. When you take your car to the mechanic and they look at your tires and notice they are worn abnormally. They will never tell you that you only need new tires. They will tell you the alignment is off and that needs to be fixed first. The same is true for your spine. When the upper neck is misaligned (subluxated) this will cause problems below the neck.
Fig. 1 Postural muscle tone becomes imbalanced which is an adaptation to the upper neck misalignment
Our goal of upper cervical care is to correct atlas and axis misalignments. We run objective neurological test to determine whether or not a person has an upper neck misalignment. Once located precise x-rays (if clinically indicated) are taken to determine direction of the misalignment and the angle of the joints that are involved. This information is then used to make precise correction to the atlas or axis. Once corrected the patient is monitored over time to make sure they are maintaining the correction. If the correction has misaligned again another correction is made. If the tests indicate it is in alignment no correction is made on that visit. While the correction is maintained is when healing accrues. We hope that his blog has been helpful and informative and leads those who suffer in the direction of healing!
