want to be honest with you about how I felt the day I saw Jean's X-rays.
She had come to me after two cervical spine surgeries, hardware in her neck at multiple levels, and a history that would give most chiropractors pause. When I looked at her imaging, my honest internal reaction was not confidence. It was more like: okay. Let's see what we can do. I told her I would try to help her. I did not make promises.
What happened next exceeded my expectations in every way.
She Got Up for a Glass of Water
Jean's story begins the way a lot of serious neck injuries do: completely out of nowhere.
She was at a friend's house, got up in the middle of the night to get a glass of water, and the next thing she knew she was on the floor. She had passed out. She woke up lying on her kitchen floor with what she described as knives going through her shoulders and neck. Every time she tried to move, the pain was unbearable. She lay there, still, for a long time before she finally made it to the sofa and called her children.
When they arrived and saw how much pain she was in, they called an ambulance. The paramedics put a brace on her neck, transported her to the nearest hospital, and the imaging showed what had happened: her discs at C4-5 and C5-6 had collapsed.
After three weeks of medication and management, she had surgery. And then, because the first procedure could not address everything at once, she had a second surgery.
Two cervical fusions. Hardware in her neck. And a body that still was not right.
What the Surgeries Left Behind
The surgeries stabilized the immediate structural crisis. The collapsed discs were addressed, the nerve roots decompressed, the vertebrae fused. From a surgical standpoint, the procedure was a success.
But Jean was still falling.
Not occasionally. Regularly. Walking across the street for no reason, her feet would go out from under her. She was having severe cramping in her hands and legs, the kind that woke her up in the middle of the night and kept her walking around her bedroom for ten minutes just to resolve a Charlie horse. Her hands would cramp so severely they would split open.
She was also not the kind of person who sits still. She has four children, seven grandchildren, family dinners, a job that requires regular travel. This was not a life that allowed her to be unsteady on her feet. And yet that is where she found herself.
Her daughters had been coming to Well Connected and kept telling her to come in. She was hesitant. She had had neck surgery. She had been told chiropractic was off the table. But eventually she made the appointment.
What I Found
When I looked at Jean's imaging I could see exactly what the surgical hardware had and had not addressed. The fusions had stabilized C4-5 and C5-6. But the atlas, the very top of the spine where Blair upper cervical chiropractic works, was still misaligned. And C3, one of the segments partially fused with the plates and screws, was also not sitting where it needed to be.
I was honest with her: I did not know for certain what would happen. I would not promise outcomes I could not guarantee. But I believed the upper cervical misalignment was contributing to her instability, her cramping, and the neurological symptoms that had persisted since the surgeries.
We made the correction. And then we waited.
She Caught Herself at the Grocery Store
The cramping started to ease first. The hand cramping, the leg cramps in the night. They came a couple more times and then one day she realized: they had stopped. Completely.
And then came the moment she walked into my office to tell me about, the moment I want every patient and every person who has been told chiropractic cannot help them to hear.
She was at the grocery store, walking down an aisle, and her foot went out from under her. She was going backwards. Water on the floor, tile, the kind of situation anyone could have fallen in.
She did not fall. She put her hands out, caught herself, and balanced.
People around her were startled. Where did that water come from? And Jean was standing there thinking: I caught myself. I actually caught myself.
She came in and told me and I was genuinely overjoyed. Because before her Blair correction, she was falling when there was no reason to fall. Now she had a completely legitimate reason to fall, water on slippery tile, and her body caught her. That is the nervous system doing its job. That is what becomes possible when the structural interference at the top of the spine is removed.
She has had one Blair upper cervical correction. One. And it has held through everything.
To Anyone Who Has Had Surgery
I want to speak directly to anyone who is reading this and thinking: I have had neck surgery. I have been told chiropractic is not for me.
Jean was told the same thing. And I will tell you what I told her: I cannot promise what will happen. But if there is upper cervical misalignment present, which there often is even in patients who have had surgical intervention below that level, there may be something we can do. The hardware, the fusion, the plates and screws: those exist below where we work. Blair upper cervical is the atlas, the very top, and in many post-surgical patients that area remains completely untouched by what the surgeon addressed.
It is worth having the conversation. It is worth getting the imaging and seeing what the picture looks like. And if I cannot help you, I will tell you honestly. But I would rather have that conversation than have you go another year falling down for no reason.
Jean put it simply: I can't get any worse. And it certainly can get a lot better.
She was right.
Listen to the full conversation with Jean Fenoglio on the Well Connected Podcast: Live Your Life in Alignment. Available wherever you get your podcasts.
Looking for a Blair chiropractor near you? Visit blairchiropractic.com to find a provider in your area. In Southern California, find us at wellconnectedchiro.com.
