Question
Hi Dr. Arnone.

  I am a 39 yr. old female. I work retail and do light lifting at work. About 3 months ago I wake up with a dislocated shoulder. No big deal. About 2 weeks after that I wake up and I can't stand up at all. It was obvious my lower back where there was suppose to be a curve no longer had the curve. I got a few adjustments from a chiropractor and all was better. I say better, still have pain but I can stand up and walk. Dr. said my vertebrate had twisted. Not sure why or how. About 1 week ago my shoulder started to hurt again. So, I go to the Dr. (family Dr.) she notices I have no curve in the upper part of my back. I suppose the neck area. What is causing this? I've never had back problems only occasional stiff neck from sleeping wrong.

Answer
Tonya,
The cause of your problem is at the top of the neck where the head meets the spine.  you see your entire spine follows the lead of the top, so if your Atlas or Axis are Subluxated (locked in the wrong position putting pressure on the brainstem), then your entire spine gets misaligned also.  Having the lower part of your spine corrected will not correct the cause of the problem properly.  That may alleviate some pain, but it does not solve your problem.  The work that I am talking about is highly specialized, this is not something that you can go to a general chiropractor for.  This is work that only an Upper Cervical Specific Doctor of Chiropractic can perform.
The goal is to re-align the head and the neck properly so that there will no longer be instability in the Upper Neck, which means that there will no longer be instability in the rest of the spine as well, over time.
This is the best way to correct this and to have you improve and get stronger.  You will know on the very first visit if you indeed are a candidate for this care and if you can get well under The Specific.
If you would like assistance in locating a Specialist, just send me your town and state and I reply to you with a name and number.

Yours in Best Health,
Dr Robert Arnone, DC
Upper Cervical Specific Doctor
"Brainstem Specialist"