C6 nerve compression and double vision

Appreciate the tips. I’m willing to try anything that might help!

If you haven't tried it already, I recommend looking into an upper cervical care modality like NUCCA. I believe atlas subluxation is vastly underdiagnosed because most practitioners don't know what to look for, let alone how to treat it.

Don't underestimate the range and severity of effects that can be induced by atlas subluxation. Everything is fair game. I've been undergoing NUCCA care for two years, and while it can be a roller coaster, at least it's a roller coaster in the positive direction rather than the other way around, which it was for so many years. If you have any questions about what it's like or how it works, just ask.

Hi
Thanks for your reply. I’m not really sure what NUCCA care is, so if you could explain further that would be great. What you said resonates, I have such a wide range of very odd symptoms that it seems almost unbelievable that there’s a connection.
Sounds like you are getting some help though, so that’s really positive
Tracey

NUCCA is a style of upper cervical care. It is designed to assess and treat misalignment of the C1 (atlas) vertebra. Due to its proximity to the skull and the embedded vestibular apparatus, a misalignment of C1 tilts the skull relative to the rest of the body and distorts the body's relationship with gravity. This leads to aberrant patterns of muscular tonus throughout the body in an attempt to compensate for the tilted head, eventually resulting in scoliosis and nerve compression, among other things. Symptoms will correlate with whatever pattern of nerve compression is induced by one's specific misalignment at C1. This is why any and all organ systems can potentially benefit from atlas care.

If X-rays are indicative of C1 misalignment, the treatment is very gentle and noninvasive--so much so that the average person is likely to doubt whether it could possibly have any effect. You basically lay on your side for 5-10 minutes while the chiro provides strategically targeted little shoves to the transverse process of C1. It's a quick, painless procedure. In my experience, some effects can be felt immediately, before even getting up off the table, while others take days, weeks, or months to manifest. Everyone's experience is unique because their misalignment is unique.

The longer one's atlas has been out of alignment, the longer it takes to reverse the damage, and the less likely it is to achieve full resolution. This is why atlas care is much more efficient with young people or if administered soon after the trauma that caused the misalignment. By trauma, I mean anything from whiplash to bumping your head. An adjustment should, at the very least, put a pause on further degeneration until the body reorganizes itself. Individual results will vary based on the competency of the practitioner as well, so I'd recommend using the Find a Doctor on the NUCCA.org website.

Thank you cosmic ram, that’s really helpful, I will have a look
Tracey

@cudabinacontenda Your imaging does explain your lower body symptoms and gait disturbances. I ran into this problem myself and saw 5 spine surgeons who were confused by this. It is called "funicular pain" where contact with the cervical spinal cord causes pain to be referred to the lower body and limbs.

My very first symptom was a pain in my ankle, and it's common for surgeons to think this should be caused by lumbar spine pathology. This was my big discovery when I found this which was my accurate diagnosis in medical literature. I only had a ruptured cervical disc and none in lumbar that were causing issues.

I found the study by searching for the term "funicular pain" because I found that in a paper co-authored by a Mayo surgeon. I hired him because I knew I had found someone who wouldn't question the validity of my symptoms. I wish I could enlighten spine surgeons everywhere to this condition because it is real and exists.

Here is the medical literature that changed my course of treatment. The problem is there is no diagnostic test for this, and the only confirmation is that decompression surgery fixes this pain. A clue that you may have it, is that an epidural spine injection takes away your pain temporarily. I had that experience too and the injection took away all my pain everywhere, but the surgeon didn't understand the results and ignored it. I found myself in the position of being dismissed by a high level surgeon, then finding his mistake, and no one would help me address it with him, so I needed to look elsewhere.

When I came to Mayo, I sent this literature with my imaging and asked the question, is my case like this? and I asked a guy who knew about funicular pain. That way, you put the ball in their court before any conclusions are made, and you are asking for their advice instead of telling them how to do their job.

Cervical cord compression presenting with sciatica-like leg pain
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3111492/
Do you think your doctors will be receptive to reading this literature?

Jennifer, thank you so much for this! I am going to bring it to all of my follow-up appointments with spine surgeon, neurologist and DPT! I’m pretty confident that they will all read and consider it.

I’ll let you know what happens and fill you in on my progress. You are enormously helpful! Thanks again!