How Your Body Works
The muscles, ligaments, and tendons in your body is also the connective tissue that keeps your spine from collapsing. An accident or injury can cause that tissue to weaken leading to the break down of the spine. This will cause the spine to lock into a stressed position, and the longer it stays in that position the more it causes the joints, discs, muscles, and more to wear down.
Now, this is not something that is new in an upper cervical chiropractic office, as it is common to see patients who have suffered from various accidents with spines in this position. Those accidents are often vehicular accidents they patient suffered recently, but that's not always the case. They could have sustained an injury from a car accident perhaps as long as 15 years ago.
Degenerative Disc Disease
How long it takes for the impact of the injury to manifest itself as the breaking down of bones, ligaments, disc, etc (Degenerative Disc Disease) is dependent upon various factors. Though, an upper cervical chiropractor can determine the approximate time when the injury occurred based on the extent of the degeneration of the spine.
For the last several years upper cervical chiropractors have seen and cared for countless patients who suffer from Degenerative Disc Disease, which is also called Arthritis of the spine, and is often the result of an injury due to a colission such as a car accident.
Reversing Your Injury
Now the question is whether or not the effects of Degenerative Disc Disease can be reversed or not, and the answer is they can be. Though reversing the effects of this disease will mean allowing an upper cervical chiropractor to examine your upper neck vertebrae for any misalignments that may be the underlying cause of many of your conditions.
That's because a misalignment in your upper neck vertebrae of only 1/4 of a millimeter can place enough pressure on the brainstem to hinder the brain's ability to communicate with the body. The brain's inability to communicate with the body can then lead to various health problems throughout the body.
References:
The Cervical Spine-The Cervical Spine Research Society, Lippincott, 1989 Mason Hohl, MD Professor of Surgery/Orthopedics, UCLA Medical Center Page 440
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