Southwest Florida's Health and Wellness Magazine Health and Wellness Articles
By Dr. Drew Hall
My life path was made quite simple. In 1991 I suffered a neck injury. After baseball practice, a friend and I partook in a friendly wrestling match. I was losing and found myself upside down. In an instant, my life would change forever. I was accidentally dropped upside down on my head. I heard a loud crunch in my neck upon impact. Afterward, I rolled over and had no pain and no paralysis. I thought I escaped injury and went on with life. Over the next 2 years, I spiraled into chronic health problems not knowing that it was caused by the neck injury.
Slowly over six months, I found myself complaining of headaches, brain fog, and neck pain. My energy was lower, and my sleep patterns were disrupted. I ignored the symptoms and figured at some point they would go away. The symptoms did not go away, in fact, they grew worse. The downward spiral was slow, and as a result, I never connected the dots between my loss of health and the wrestling injury. And why should have I connected the dots? I was never taught that my spine had much to do with my health, were you?
Within six months my headaches were a daily occurrence. I felt an intense pain at the base of the skull. My head felt heavy, my mind was cloudy and my normal energy levels began to fade. My bed became my prison. Falling to sleep became a horrible ordeal. For those of you who have had sleep trouble you understand the tricks that one plays to bring on sleep. I would often toss and turn for hours, put my head where my feet would normally go, switch from left side to my right side, lie on my stomach, anything just to get to sleep. For the better part of two years, it took a minimum of three hours to fall asleep. And to make matters worse once asleep I would wake 3-5 times a night. When morning would come instead of feeling refreshed, I felt like a truck had run over me.
One and half years after the trauma the spectrum of symptoms increased. I had daily nausea. Standing up from a sitting position often caused my field of vision to become black, I’d feel faint and after a while my normal cognition would return. Slowly over time, my sinuses swelled shut. It was as if my entire body was slowly shutting down. I felt like I was trapped and there didn’t seem to be a way out. For over two years I told no one about how I felt. I figured at some point it would go away. I would often dream about feeling well. It had been so long that I almost forgot what that felt like.
By two years the headaches I felt at the base of my skull were constant, insomnia was a nightly occurrence, and my emotional state started to sink into a state of despair. How much longer would I have to wait until my body fixed itself? My most treasured activities were not even enjoyable anymore and I began to think that life wasn’t worth it. The fear of the unknown began to creep in and eventually, I started to have anxiety and severe depression. My physical hell now became a mental one too. I started to worry that I had cancer. I developed anxiety and started to flip through medical texts trying to determine what was wrong.
Something had to change and the fork in my life’s path occurred. I was walking home from school and thought “if I have to feel like this for another two more years, I will probably just kill myself.” This scared me enough to seek help. I told my mother what was happening and she was shocked. I didn’t look sick so she would never have known. She asked “ why didn’t you say something?”. And the truth is that it happened slowly and I thought it would just go away…..
I initially consulted our family doctor who ran a cursory consultation and rather quickly admitted he did not know what was wrong. I was referred to an internist. He ran a complete blood panel, brain MRI and took my vitals. All of the tests came back negative. I was then referred to a neurologist where a CT of my brain was taken, and a complete neurological workup was performed. Everything was negative. I was then referred to an infectious disease doctor. I was bitten by a tick several times in the past, so they were trying to rule out Lyme disease. The lyme’s panel came back negative also.
I was eventually told that I had seen 3 of the best medical doctors in the San Francisco bay area and based on medical science there was nothing wrong with me. I was told to seek a psychiatrist. Of course, it was all in my head, right?
After being told it was all in my head I realized if I was going to get well I had to look outside of the medical health care paradigm.
Even though I was sure it wasn’t psycho-somatic I followed through with medical advice. I went to a psychologist that had me take several tests. At that point, I didn’t really care what the cause was. I just wanted someone to let me out of the nightmare. I was told that I had anxiety and depression, which was already obvious. I realized that the discipline called medicine didn’t have the answer.
I wasn’t interested in swallowing drugs I was interested in correcting the cause of the problem so I could get truly well.
I was told by the psychologist that a drug was necessary to treat my depression. When I got home from that appointment, I told my mom what they wanted to do. I also told my mom that the last thing I wanted to do was take psychiatric drugs and her response was, “Drew maybe it will help you feel better”. My response was mom I don’t want to feel better I want to get better. There is a BIG DIFFERENCE!
Through a long circuitous route, I stumbled upon a book title chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. When I read this book I said “ this is me!”. I found a support group in San Francisco for chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and they suggested a homeopath. I had no idea what a homeopath was but I was willing to try anything.
The homeopath asked me over 100 questions in the consultation. She uncovered something that no one else had. She asked about my trauma history. The constant pain at the base of my skull was a tip-off that something was going on in my neck. It was then that I realized that the wrestling injury I had had over two and a half years earlier might correlate to my health problems. At the end of her consultation, she said, “Drew I think I can help you, but I think you also need to go and see Dr. Tom forest in Pleasanton.” She explained that he did a unique procedure in which the top vertebra in the neck was corrected through specific, gentle correction. She also explained that he did not twist pop or pull anything and furthermore she said, do not let anyone talk you into seeing anyone else.”
We made an appointment with Doctor Forest and made the 35-minute drive to Pleasanton, California. In consultation, I learned that our bodies were meant to heal and repair. I learned that there was a wisdom, referred to as innate intelligence, that was always striving for health and if we are sick the best place to look for its cause was the nerve system. I also learned that the nerve system composed of the brain the spinal cord and the associated spinal nerves was the superhighway upon which life-giving messages were transmitted to tell each cell in the body how to function. Furthermore, Dr. Forest explained that the junction between c-1 (atlas) and the skull, was the most vulnerable structural area in the spine and most vulnerable to spinal misalignment. Trauma can cause this junction to misalign causing interference to the central nerve system. The result is DYSFUNCTION and poor health.
Never in a million years did I think that a chiropractor would be my answer. Dr. Forest was a unique type of chiropractor who focused all of his attention on the top two bones in the neck. He made two corrections to my atlas and axis. The correction was so light I thought nothing was done. What transpired over the next months was unexpected.
IT COMPLETELY CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER!
Within weeks my headaches were improving, I was sleeping through the night, my depression was gone, my sinuses started to open up and it set me on a path of recovery and healing.
Since my healing I’ve committed my life to helping as many people recover their lost health through this amazing procedure. If you are reading this and you have all but given up hope I’ll bet you have never tried the Blair Upper Cervical Technique. Our office offers a free consultation and we would be happy to see if we can change your life like ours was over two decades ago!
Schedule a no obligation FREE consultation in our office today!
941.259.1891
sarasotauppercervical.com
Sarasota Upper Cervical Chiropractic
3920 Bee Ridge Rd, Bldg D
Sarasota, FL 34223
