THE MISALIGNED ATLAS AS CAUSE FOR ONGOING WHIPLASH-ASSOCIATED DISORDERS (WAD)

The term “whiplash” is used to describe all traumas that involve hyperflexion and hyperextension of the cervical spine. Whiplash can be caused by car accidents, violent blows received while playing sports, or falls, sometimes of a trivial nature. The fact of the matter is that after a whiplash injury, people are often no longer the same: any everyday activity may become a burden. In extreme cases they can no longer carry out their work adequately; they shut themselves away at home and social life feels tiresome to them.

	Have you suffered a whiplash injury and yet no doctor can tell you what is causing your continued symptoms?
	Have you tried all the available therapies with no success?
	Did your doctor subject you to X-ray and perhaps MRI scans and then undertake all the necessary examinations to establish that everything is structurally in order?
	Have your symptoms not been relieved despite the confidence of the doctors, so that you were eventually prescribed painkillers or even anti-psychotic drugs (e.g. anti-depressants)?
	Perhaps your doctor even suggested that your symptoms were psychological or maybe you were even branded as a malingerer. But you know well enough that this is not the case and that your pain is real, because you had no such problems before the whiplash injury!

The problem lies in the fact that the doctor is searching for cruder injuries, such as fractured bones or ruptured ligaments. When no injuries of this nature can be established, in his eyes everything appears to be in order and you simply have to rest and recuperate for a while. A whiplash injury however may not necessarily lead to such extreme injuries however, as even small dysbalances in the spine can cause long-lasting symptoms.

The cervical spine can be compared to precision engineering in terms of its complexity.

This can be illustrated as follows: You accidentally drop a mechanical clock on the floor. When you pick it up again, the clock appears to be completely intact, but unfortunately you soon notice that it is no longer working correctly and that it always runs 5 minutes late. Why? One of the precisely-engineered parts has been bent in the impact, has gone off-centre and is therefore causing extra friction in the mechanism.

The same thing can also happen to the cervical spine, in that an individual vertebra, although not bent in an impact, may have moved into an awkward position, so that the former balance is disturbed. The vertebra misalignment is not noticed by the doctor because it is not visible on an X-ray or MRI-scan; the doctor is looking for structural damage and not for misaligned vertebrae. So he comes to the conclusion that "it is not possible to ascertain what happens to the neck structure in the event of a whiplash injury, which over the passage of time results in chronic pain, or how this can be cured".

To return to the above example: What would you think of a clockmaker if he told you that your clock was working just fine and that if it runs 5 minutes late this must be as a result of a psychological problem on your part?

In the event that your doctor no longer knows what to do about your condition and has referred you to a chiropractor, you may like to know that just because a problem with the cervical spine has been caused by a sudden, jerky movement, it does not mean that it can be rectified by a sudden, jerky movement, as attempted by chiropractors, for example. In other words would you consider it a good idea if the clockmaker threw your broken clock to the floor a couple more times in order to repair it?

With ATLANTOtec^® there is at last a method available which can restore the precision engineering of the cervical spine and which can put it back into harmony.

ATLANTOtec^® is not a treatment for crude injuries (fractured bones, or ruptured muscles or ligaments), which must in any case be treated by a doctor, nor is it applied using manipulation, but it is not just a simple massage either.

ATLANTOtec^® does not belong in the “Massage” category of therapeutic methods and it belongs even less in the category of “Manipulation”.
ATLANTOtec^® is a completely new approach and occupies its own place between the more familiar forms of therapy.

WHAT EXACTLY HAPPENS DURING A WHIPLASH?

 
What had never been observed until the advent of the ATLANTOtec^® method is that whiplash causes the Atlas, already misaligned from birth, to suffer an increased angle of rotation or a greater lateral slippage, compressing or stretching even further the spinal medulla, the vertebral arteries, the carotid artery and various lymphatic vessels and canals. The body may have compensated as best it can for the wrong position of the Atlas at birth, but now, following the sudden shift into an even more unfavourable position, the body no longer has any hope of ignoring the problem without consequences.

A whiplash often aggravates an already precarious cervical situation.

The period of time after which the much-feared chronic disturbances present themselves is determined by the position assumed by the Atlas after the whiplash and the progressive deterioration of the parts subjected to permanently increased pressure. The pains caused by the hyperextension of the muscles and ligaments usually pass after a few weeks with the aid of an immobilising collar and the treatment of a skilful therapist.

What does not undergo any change is the highly critical position of the Atlas. The ligaments of the Atlas are the only things capable of maintaining it in a position as close as possible to the correct one. Now that the ligaments are stretched, they allow a worsening of the position of the Atlas.

The ATLANTOtec^® method makes it possible to return the Atlas to the position intended by nature. The ligaments are now allowed to exercise their natural elasticity and resume their resting length, as when we release an elastic band under tension, and the ailments soon disappear. The loss of elasticity of ligaments that have been kept for a considerable time under a tension greater than necessary for carrying out the normal functions is well-known in relation to other joints. The same also applies to the atlanto-occipital joint with regard to movements that involve both the Atlas and the cranium.

CRAMPED NECK MUSCULATURE

Many whiplash patients have had the unfortunate experience that the pains caused by the abrupt forward and backward movement of the head do not diminish with the passage of time, but rather that they have even worsened and have developed to become chronic symptoms. The reason for this – quite irrespective of the incorrect alignment of the neck vertebrae – is to be found in the muscle cramps in the deep neck musculature triggered by the instance of whiplash injury. The muscles remain permanently stretched and they do not relax as a result of endless massages or physiotherapy treatments. WHAT CAN BE DONE ABOUT THIS? Help is available from the treatment device which is intended specifically for Atlas realignment. With it the deep musculature can also be intensively and effectively massaged. With one or more treatments focused specifically on the neck musculature they can once more be relaxed, which removes or reduces the muscle cramps, and allows the head to move freely and easily once again. In many cases, this type of massage, combined with the actual Atlas realignment results in the complete disappearance of symptoms.

WHIPLASH-ASSOCIATED DISORDERS

Some of the possible symptoms after a whiplash injury are: severe muscular pains in the neck and shoulders, dazed sensation, dizziness, disturbances of vision and hearing, headache or migraine, problems of concentration and memory, sleep disturbances, fatigue, unsteady gait, pins and needles in the face or arms.

STATISTICS

The journalist Claudia Nientit writes, in issue no. 89 of the Swiss newspaper "Sonntagszeitung", published on 28.11.2004: “It is still not known what happens in the head after suffering a whiplash injury”. In 2002 there were 27,000 cases of whiplash recorded in Switzerland, costing the insurance companies almost a billion Swiss francs (approximately 330 million Euros), so as well as being traumatic for the person suffering the whiplash, it is also traumatic for the insurance companies. What is currently known for certain is that owing to the backward and forward movement of the neck, there is a straining of the ligaments and muscles of the cervical spine. In more serious cases, there may be vertebral fractures or tearings of muscles or ligaments.

PRECAUTIONS

Before carrying out ATLANTOtec^® treatment after a very violent whiplash, any structural damage should be ruled out by suitable medical investigations using modern equipment before following the doctor’s instructions. It is advisable to wait 1-2 months before carrying out correction of the Atlas in order to rule out any complications caused by undetected pre-existing damage.

Preventive correction of the position of the Atlas avoids even more serious consequences in the event of “whiplash”.

After correcting the position of the Atlas following a “whiplash”, it is recommended to continue with other treatments from an osteopath in order to check and if necessary treat the other vertebrae of the spinal column.

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