Scoliosis
By Dr. Jason Slagel | March 10th, 2021
The main reason for scoliosis existing is from what is called “Brainstem Pressure.”
Here is how it happens
If you have an accident or an injury (for people with scoliosis this happens at birth) that damages the connective tissue in the neck, then the head and neck can shift out of place. This shift of the top of the neck out of place is where the Brainstem Pressure happens. Here is what it looks like.
When the brainstem is compressed, it is called Brainstem Pressure. Many people with Brainstem Pressure can see that their ears are no longer level when they try to hold their head straight. The brainstem controls many automatic functions in your body, including muscle tone. So, if you put pressure on one side of the brainstem, then one side of the body squeezes down, causing one shoulder to be lower, the hips to be uneven, and the legs to be uneven. When this entire posture pattern is seen, along with the head being unlevel, then that means that a person has Brainstem Pressure. Here is what that posture pattern looks like in someone with moderate Brainstem Pressure.
The problem with people who have scoliosis is that this Brainstem Pressure happened at birth. This means that as the bones were forming throughout childhood and as the growth spurts were happening throughout puberty and the growth plates were closing, the abnormal stresses on the spine actually reshaped the bones to fit that posture pattern in an exaggerated way. So instead of the picture above being a moderate posture pattern, the posture pattern becomes more extreme, looking like this.
This is the SAME PATTERN as the moderate pattern, but much more extreme since the bones have reformed. These extreme curves, if bigger than 15 degrees, are labeled “Scoliosis” and can cause significant health issues involving back pain, breathing difficulty, neck pain, headaches, sciatica, and many other problems.
At Structural Spinal Care, we correct the underlying cause: Brainstem Pressure. The way we correct this problem is by addressing the root issue, which is the shift of the head and neck out of position. We take extremely precise x-rays of the head and neck and measure that shift down to 1/100th of a degree from all three dimensions. Then, we can measure exactly how the head and neck have shifted out of place and how it is putting pressure on the brainstem and we can calculate how to correct it. This is all without any twisting, cracking, or popping. Once the head and neck are corrected back to their proper positions, the pelvis and leg length are able to level out, meaning the strain is off of the spine. Now, the bones that have been reshaped are permanently reformed, so the curves will never go back to perfectly straight, but the extra strain can be removed once the Brainstem Pressure is removed. This means that the scoliosis symptoms can actually improve and possibly resolve.
Here are a couple of x-rays of my actual patients before and after their correction.
You can see here that the right hip was higher than the left hip by 1.71 degrees and then afterward the hips were only 0.3 degrees different, which is a huge change. Also, the low back scoliosis curve improved 2 degrees and the upper scoliosis curve improved almost 5 degrees. These changes show the stress being removed from the spine by correcting the brainstem pressure, allowing the body to heal and the back pain to completely resolve.
Here you can see the scoliosis curve improved from 38.3 degrees to 33.5 degrees. This almost 5-degree change was accomplished by removing the Brainstem Pressure and therefore removing the strain from the spine. This lady’s headaches and low back pain were able to completely heal after the correction.
Stay One Step Ahead of Pain
To learn more about this connection between brainstem pressure and scoliosis and what Structural Spinal Care can do to help or simply to sit down with the doctor and talk, request a complimentary consultation with the button below or give our office a call at +1 954 842 2677.