Cranio-Cervical Syndrome

A group of distinguished experts met in New York City on April 6, 2013 to discuss the impact of a newly identified medical syndrome known as Cranio-Cervical Syndrome (CCS). The conference is expected to become an annual event to address the pandemic needs of the millions of patients (including 1.2 million whiplash injuries annually in the US) who currently have no solution from their symptoms for the lack of an adequate diagnosis or effective treatment. The symposium is called “The Cranio-Cervical Syndrome (CCS): The Vulnerability of the Human Neck and Its Impact on Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) Flow.”

Although this syndrome is newly identified in the medical community, symptoms associated with the cranio-cervical syndrome are commonly found in an upper cervical chiropractic office. Upper cervical chiropractors have identified this syndrome over 80 years ago calling it the Atlas subluxation complex syndrome. But new technology is finally pointing the medical community towards this critical area of the body.

A press release about the symposium states that it has been convened because of the vast number of patients with the syndrome being encountered by FONAR’s UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI and its UPRIGHT® CSF flow Video Technology and the unexpected discovery of the lack of the medical community’s awareness of the existence of this syndrome and of its pandemic dimensions.

The Cranio-Cervical Syndrome is associated with a collection of symptoms centered around different types of headaches and different types of neck pain including:

• Pressure Headaches or migraines
• Sub-occipital neck pain (in the “back of the neck” at the base of the skull)
• Neck pain that is frequently position dependent (e.g. “skull forward”, “skull backward”, “turning of the head”, etc.)
• Neck pain” described as “knife stabbing” or “pins and needle stabbing at the base of the skull”
• Headaches occurring randomly throughout the day but frequently generated by a change of head position (e.g. moving of the head from the recumbent to the upright position)
• Headaches accompanied by tinnitus and visual disturbances such as “blurred vision”, “tunnel vision”, “double vision”, “kaleidoscopic vision”, nystagmus
• Pressure headaches accompanied by dementia and loss of cognitive skills

Additional Symptoms Encountered: Accompanying “Pressure Headaches” to Varying Degree:

• drop attacks
• dizziness
• loss of balance
• numbness of legs
• difficulty walking
• vertigo
• sudden dropping of things from hands
• loss of color vision
• loss of motor skills in the lower extremities and potential wheel chair confinement
• numbness and tingling in the legs and feet
• numbness and loss of motor control in the arms

With this new technology patients experiencing these symptoms are able to get answers. FONAR UPRIGHT® Multi-Position™ MRI is showing a variety of damage associated with past traumas to the cervical spine and misalignments in the upper neck that are leading to a total or partial CSF flow obstruction.

These obstructions of cerebrospinal fluid flow are leading to changes in the brain, including CSF leaks and increased intracranial pressure. These brain changes are being studied as a probable cause of multiple sclerosis and other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, and Childhood Autism.

In order to address this syndrome the patient must be evaluated thoroughly in the upper cervical spine (upper neck). If an upper neck misalignment is found, the misalignment can be corrected with a specialized procedure that is safe, gentle and extremely effective.
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