Fall is right here upon us. We’re rolling into a heavy football season and soccer, and so we have a lot of kids, even adults, who come into us after they’ve had some sort of blow to the head, or possibly a concussion. Now, the thing that’s important to note is that if you take a blow to the head that is strong enough to create a concussion, then there’s a very, very good likelihood that there’s a much bigger problem actually below the brain, which is in the upper part of the neck.

    Think about this: a concussion…what happens is there’s a blow to the head that’s strong enough that the brain actually slams into the skull and actually bruises the brain itself. Well, if there’s enough force to sling that brain back and forth you can imagine, this is the neck. If there’s that kind of force, you can imagine what that would do to the position of the bones underneath it. We have a 10–12-pound head sitting on top of a bone that weighs about three ounces, so that type of blow to the head is enough to bruise the brain. It’s more than likely going to reposition some of the bones in the top of the neck. 

    This is very important because, with post-concussion syndrome, most of the time the brain is healed, but now they’re still having symptoms. They’re having headaches, maybe sometimes dizziness, sometimes foggy headedness, they can’t concentrate, have potential neck pain, and severe headaches is usually the biggest symptom, but what’s happening is there’s something more frequently underneath that has interfered with the brainstem. The lower part of the brain comes down into the top two bones of the neck, and that’s interfering with blood flow, cerebral spinal flow, and even how the brain works itself. 

    If you have ever had a concussion and you still have post-concussion syndrome, and you still have symptoms lingering as a result, then it only makes sense to just get this part of the area, this part of your neck, checked out because most of the time what we have found is they have a severe misalignment here that will happen at the same time as the injury, but they lump it into “Oh, it’s still the brain healing.” Well, it’s not because usually within two to three months most of those concussion symptoms have cleared up. If you’re having lingering symptoms as a result, there’s a very good likelihood there’s a problem at the top of your neck that has created it.

    If you have ever had any kind of blow to the head or any kind of concussion, it’s always a good idea to get that area checked. If you have a child that may have had an injury, then always follow up with an upper cervical doctor just to double check to see if there’s a problem there. If there’s not, hey great, we ruled it out. If there is, if left uncorrected over time, it can create bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger problems throughout the entire spine, and the entire body as a result.