Cervicogenic Vertigo

Specific Illnesses & Conditions VM/MAV
1

At the doc’s the other day (the one who recommends 2 squares of good quality dark chocolate a day), he also mentioned he thought my dizziness might be triggered by something in my neck (I’d mentioned looking up can make me dizzier). Well recently I’ve been very sceptical about cervical migraine, especially after visiting a chiropractor, and reading up about the philosophy of chiropractic and thinking it a bit, well, quackish (sorry to any chiros here and I hope I don’t get accused of libel :lol: ). Also, I read what Scott had to say which sort of confirmed my scepticism:

Yes, cervicogenic vertigo exists in the medical literature but it is extremely rare and usually shows up after whiplash injuries. Furthermore, there are no nerves running through the neck that directly impact the vestibular system (according to Steve Novella, neurologist)

However, a few things I’ve observed makes me retain some belief in the possibilty there is a neck connection, i.e. neck pain is not only a symptom of migraine, but may, just may, for some of us perhaps, be one of several triggers for it (and I don’t mean a cause). These are:

  1. I’ve noticed I get dizzy often the day after I’ve been to a Pilates class and done the One Hundreds (this involves neck strain)
  2. I have a round basket chair which has no neck support and on the few occasions when I’ve sat in it and used my laptop, I’ve developed dizziness later.
  3. The phenomenon of ‘tall building syndrome’ (aka Golden Gate Syndrome’) or ‘hairdresser’s syndrome’ (as they are sometimes flippantly called), when otherwise healthy individuals have suffered a stroke following prolonged neck extension e.g when having hair washed at the salon or looking up at buildings. This is due to dissection of the internal carotid artery. As a therapist who treats stroke patients I have had 3 patients (all young and fit) who had this, as well as a friend who had a stroke (no risk factors) following an afternoon painting her ceiling. And there are of course the tales of strokes following chiropractic manipulation. A ‘kink’ in the neck arteries is affecting blood flow to the brain.

Moving away then from chiropractiic theories of subluxation etc. which all sound a bit unscientific, I had a look to see if there was anything published by mainstream medicine about this, and found 3 particularly interesting papers, one by neurologists and the others by neurophysiotherapists.
These are:

  1. Cervical muscles in the pathogenesis of migraine headache, by Elliot Shevel and Egilius H. Spierings, in The Journal of Headache and Pain, Volume 5, Number 1 / April, 2004. Here’s the abstract:
    The pathogenesis of migraine headache is poorly understood but the trigeminovascular system seems to play an important role in it. The trigeminal nucleus caudalis is sensitised by noxious sensory stimuli, often from convergent afferents originating from a variety of tissues. In this paper, we review evidence to support the view that the cervical muscles play a role in the pathogenesis of the migraine headache as well by facilitating the mechanism of central sensitisation.
    I’ve read the whole paper and this bit’s the interesting bit:
    The trigeminocervical nucleus is the area in the upper cervical spinal cord where sensory nerve fibres in the descending tract of the trigeminal nerve converge with sensory fibres from the upper cervical nerve roots. In this nucleus, a considerable population of neurones demonstrates convergent input from the intracranial dura mater as well as from the cervical muscles. This convergence of trigeminal and upper-cervical nociceptive pathways suggests the existence of a functional continuum between the trigeminal and upper-cervical segments involved in cranial nociception and, thus, headache. Consequently, afferent nociceptive input from tight and sore or painful neck muscles innervated by the upper cervical nerve roots may contribute to the activation of the trigeminovascular, neuroinflammatory cascade.

  2. Cervicogenic dizziness – musculoskeletal findings before and after treatment and long-term outcome, by EVA-MAJ MALMSTROM, MIKAEL KARLBERG, AGNETA MELANDER, MANS MAGNUSSON3 & ULRICH MORITZ in Disability and Rehabilitation, August 2007; 29(15): 1193 – 1205
    Abstract
    Purpose. To explore musculoskeletal findings in patients with cervicogenic dizziness and how these findings relate to pain and dizziness. To study treatment effects and long-term symptom progress.
    Method. Twenty-two patients (20 women, 2 men; mean age 37 years) with suspected cervicogenic dizziness underwent a structured physical examination before and after physiotherapy guided by the musculoskeletal findings. Questionnaires were sent to the patients six months and two years after treatment.
    Results. Dorsal neck muscle tenderness and tightness was found in a majority of the patients. Zygapophyseal joint tenderness was found at all cervical levels. Cervical range of motion was equal to or larger than expected age and gender matched values. The cervico-thoracic region was often hypomobile. Most patients had postural imbalance. Dynamic stabilization capacity was reduced. Suboccipital muscles tightness correlated with posture imbalance and poor neck stability. The treatment resulted in reduced tenderness in levator scapula, high and middle paraspinal and temporalis muscles and zygapophyseal joints at C4-C7 and increased cervico-thoracic mobility. Reduction of middle paraspinal muscle tenderness correlated with neck pain relief. Postural alignment improved, as did dynamic stabilization in trunk, neck and shoulders. After 6 months, 13 of the 17 patients had still no or less neck pain and 14 had no or less dizziness. After 2 years, 7 patients had no or less neck pain and 11 no or less dizziness.
    Conclusion. Patients with suspected cervicogenic dizziness have some musculoskeletal findings in common. Treatment based on these findings reduces neck pain as well as dizziness long-term but some patients might need a maintenance strategy.

  3. Diagnosis of Cervicogenic Headache by Gwendolen Jull, PhD, FACP Professor of Physiotherapy, The University of Queensland, Australia in The Journal of Manual & Manipulative Therapy Vol. 14 No. 3 (2006), 136 - 138
    Especially this bit:
    *Of particular interest to physical therapists is the fact that neck pain accompanies 60-70% of all headache types; it is not a feature unique to cervicogenic headache. For instance, in a large cross-sectional, population-based study of 51,050 persons, Hagan et al found that the incidence of neck pain
    associated with migraine headache was twice that for persons with non-migrainous headache. There is familiarity with the trigeminocervical nucleus underlying the physiological basis for an upper cervical disorder referring pain into the head; however, recent research has shown that there are bi-directional interactions between trigeminal afferents and afferents from the three upper cervical nerves in the trigeminocervical nucleus. In other words, nociception from a trigeminal source can be perceived as pain in the neck and this bi-directionality can explain the occurrence of neck pain as one possible symptom of migraine.

Anyway, I’m not saying these are particularly good research papers or anything but I’m thinking that just as say, red wine, cheese, 3D movies, and stress can ‘trigger’ a migraine in someone with a low threshold, maybe neck extension can also act as a trigger by nociception of the trigeminal cervical nucleus, leading to activation of the trigeminovascular, neuroinflammatory cascade.

And in case anyone’s wondering, here’s a good definiton of nociception from Wiki: “the neural processes of encoding and processing noxious stimuli”.

And that’s my research for the evening done :lol: Going to watch Flash Forward now - I love the way it’s full of Brits with American accents.

Dizzy Izzy

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All of the symptoms you mentioned in your post are common results of whiplash. Most people do not make the correlation because it takes an average of fifteen years from the time of the trauma to the onset of symptoms. Migraine patients are twice as likely to have vertigo than the general population, and vertigo patients are twice as likely to experience mirgaine. If you look at a lateral cervical x-ray of your neck, I bet you will find a lack of normal curve, meaning your head, which weighs as much as a bowling ball, is too far forward, not resting comfortably over your body. This problem is exacerbated when your neck is not supported, tilted too far forward or backward, or when you use your arms in an extended fashion. I am also willing to guess that you have head tilt. Your eyes and ears assume that they are level to the horizon. If they are not for an extended period of time, you will get dizzy, or vertigo. Next your pelvis will shift, making it appear that one of your legs is shorter than the other. This eventually leads to problems in the back and/or legs.These findings are based on three thousand of my patients with one sided brain stem disorders like Meniere’s syndrome, Trigemianl neuralgia, migraine, Bell’s palsy and Parkinson’s disease. For more information please go to:

http://www.menieresresearch.com

All information provided has appeared in peer reviewed medical journals. We have a symposium coming up this June 26th.

3

An x ray of my neck years ago showed that it was either too straight when it should have been bent, or too bent when it should have been straighter (I cant remember which). This was the only finding. Chiropracters found my right shoulder is higher than my left, one leg is shorter than the other (this seems standard findings with chiropracters), one hip was higher than the other. I had treatments with four different chiropracters and nothing helped.

After a D & C and miscarriage, I had lower back pain and coccyx pain. An x ray showed a very bent coccyx. After 20 years of coccyx pain I got an MRI last year which the NHS said was normal. Got the images and sent them off to osteopaths. They confirmed (which you can see clearly on the image), I have a scoliosis of the spine, but I believe 50% of the population has this. What it did show was that the coccyx is bent too far forward and there is a small dislocation. I do wonder if all this being out could be contributing to my headaches and dizziness. But all the treatment in the past from the chiropracters and osteopaths, plus doing the exercises too tuck the chin in and straighten the neck etc. did absolutely nothing to help me.

Christine

4

Do you remember when you fractured your coccyx? (Most people do, because it really hurts!). It could have been the same trauma that caused your whiplash, or something entirely different. Although scoliosis has a hereditary component, an upper cervical subluxation complex sets it in motion. In an attempt to level the head, the innate wisdom of the body shifts the pelvis, causing a shoulder to drop and a leg to appear short. Walking with an imbalance changes the gait and puts an unequal load on the lumbar discs, eventually causing low back pain. Your body will sacrifice the back to protect the brainstem, where half of the cranial nerves originate (including CNVIII)! You need to find a specific chiropractor.

5

Dr Burcon,

Please post the medical literature which supports your statements. The established consensus is that chiropractic care is no better than physiotherapy (and safer) in treating lower back pain only. I personally find it relieves neck tension when physiotherapy would be too stimulating to the neck region and that’s it. I wouldn’t even recommend neck adjustments to anyone because they are risky. Chiropractic care is covered extensively and rigourously by Professor Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh in a recent publication called “Trick or Treatment”. There is no such thing as “subluxation”.

innate wisdom of the body shifts the pelvis

Nonsense. There is no evidence for these sorts of statements and this falls into the same category with the sort of thing a homeopath might say such as “like curing like”. It is not factual.

Most people do not make the correlation because it takes an average of fifteen years from the time of the trauma to the onset of symptoms.

Evidence please. Where did this average come from? Where are the observational prospective studies that show this to be true?

While I do understand you have probably (hopefully) dropped by to offer help and to not promote your business, know that mvertigo is a science and evidence-based forum when it comes to treatment options. Nobody really cares if someone chooses to try an “alternative” therapy when it only costs a few bucks for some short-lived relief but it concerns me in a big way when something like NUCCA (for example) comes along where a vulnerable patient can be looking at spending thousands to line the pockets of a “specific” chiropractor. Please do not use the forum to promote personal revenue; I edited out your promotional material.

Dizzyizzy – Thanks for the links above. I have an article to post for you when I get to work on cervicogenic dizziness. They question whether there even is such a thing.

Best … Scott

6

Dr Burcon,

Perhaps you could introduce yourself so we know who you are and what your interest in migraine associated vertigo is. In your first post you write a lot about whiplash and that this puts various parts of the body out of alignment. I am not sure how any of this relates to people with migraine, menieres, Bell’s Palsy or Parkinson’s. Are you suggesting that any of these conditions are caused by wonky legs or hips? Or that they can be treated by pulling those wonky legs/pelvises/necks back into line??

In your next post you write about the “innate wisdom of the body”. What is this exactly? I don’t think my own body has it. How do you measure it - is there some sort of test - can the body study to become more wise?

Lastly, you advise finding a specific kind of chiropractor. Which kind exactly? Are you by any chance this specific type of chiropractor?

Looking forward to your advice,
Victoria

7

Dizzyizzy – I don’t have the full article but will get it if you want to read more but here’s the abstract:

Rev Med Suisse. 2009 Sep 30;5(219):1922-4:

[size=130]Cervical vertigo: myth or reality?[/size]
Patients displaying vertigo associated with cervical symptoms: what is the origin? Diagnosis of cervical vertigo is sometimes retained. It remains very controversial. Indeed there is neither a convincing pathological mechanism nor a diagnostic test.

I think the take home message is that it remains controversial because of a lack of a convincing mechanism and inconclusive evidence. My understanding to date is that it might occur from severe trauma to the neck such as whiplash but not from the sort of thing chiros will tell you where small adjustments fix the problem or that a so-called subluxation exists. On the other hand, I can see how excessive neck tension and muscle spasms in the neck could be a migraine trigger. Pain does trigger migraine … possibly via the trigeminal nerve?

Scott

8

Ruth Jackson, MD was the first female ortho surgeon. She researched and wrote a book about how whiplash can cause a leg to look short relative to the other, and designed tests for it in the 1940’s that are still commonly used today. She had 20,000 whiplash patients, I have 3,000. The physician that spoke before me at the Prosper Meniere Society in Austria me showed pet scans of Meniere’s patients that get migraines. Their Trigeminal ganglia were all lit up bright red, showing irritation. The Merck Manual added cervical trauma as a cause of Meniere’s because of my research. I do not profit from this research. I have nothing to sell. Two percent of chiropractors, after a four year premed degree and a four year graduate degree, do additonal post graduate work to specialize in being specific. There are several specific techniques. I do Blair. An atlas subluxation can cause all of the symtoms mentioned in this thread. I have a 97% success rate. This is documented by several papers published in peer reviewed medical journals and textbooks. Good health, Michael T. Burcon, B.Ph., D.C.

9

basically my doc’s have said i either have cervicogenic disequilibrium or MAV.
personally i think it is mav. although i am not totally ruling out my neck as a contributor. sitting at a computer for 9 hours a day is simply ridiculous and i can feel the strain it is putting on my neck.

what i have learnt from my experience of 2 years… is the human body is far to complex and i often wonder if the mechanisms will ever be fully understood.

10

Dr Burcon,

While I don’t doubt your enthusiasm for chiropractic and your ability to help people with MD and/or migraine associated vertigo (which is what this forum is all about) feel better, a 97% success rate is certainly impressive and for me would require some compelling evidence. Indeed, it should be easy to prove this works given your high success rate in whiplash patients. You’d quite literally be in line for a Nobel prize. I would have thought that if you were ending the cause of dizziness in all of these patients via upper cervical neck adjustments that it would be part of mainstream medicine now and yet, it isn’t.

As I posted earlier the current evidence for cervicogenic dizziness remains controversial for the reasons stated and the evidence inconclusive.

The Merck Manual added cervical trauma as a cause of Meniere’s because of my research.

I searched for your work on PubMed but did not receive any hits for the author Burcon. Where are you published? I’d be interested in seeing the reference for the trigeminal nerve info you discuss. That does sound interesting.

Have you yourself ever conducted controlled trials of some sort? I say this because your own personal observations in your own practice is not evidence no matter how many patients you think got better through neck adjustments. Bloodletting was once thought to be THE treatment for disease in the 1700s. It was defended vigourously by one of the United States most highly esteemed doctors in court back then when a skeptical junior doctor questioned its efficacy. The astute junior doctor lost the case of course because he could not defeat the establishment of the time but, in the end, double blinded controlled trials in the 1800s showed that bloodletting was killing people and was an ineffective therapy, even though doctors (the best in the United States) were absolutely convinced that they were curing thousands of their own patients. Just shows you how powerful confirmation bias is.

Best … Scott

11

Dr Burcon,

You say you have 3,000 whiplash patients. Do you mean you still see them or do you mean you have HAD 3,000? Even so, and regardless of whether you have had 3, 300 or 3,000 over 1 month or 10 years the numbers alone mean nothing. Where are the controlled, double blind studies? What peer reviewed research are you citing - you need to give us references. You claim a 97% success rate - success with what? How do you get those figures? Can you cure everything? Why doesn’t the world know about this?

You seem to focus on whiplash and Meniere’s with only a passing interest in migraine - except that you went to a confernce in Austria and saw some lights flashing on a PET scan. This forum is about migraine associated vertigo, not meniere’s.

You do have something to sell. Chiropractic. You are a chiropractor. Also I understand you have invented a chiropractic board game (what the…?) I’m guessing you sell that.

12

I see the tag team of Scott and Victoria are at it again.

Someone mentioned chiropractic and they are having hissy fits.

Instead of treating someone with some modicum of respect and not ridiculing, a possible discussion might take place and members could decide for themselves.
But this board has the feel of a dictatorship where what I read is edited or deleted on my behalf.
It is science driven.
So, where is the science behind your saying in most of your posts in reference to chiropractic Scott, that a chiro helped you at one time but then you realized that your neck problems were probably from meds or diet? I have never read of medications or food causing neck problems, either in medical literature or folklore.
What proof to you have for this?

As far as the reference you always give about blood letting when you mention chiropractic, how about the use of leeches and maggots in people with skin healing problems, etc. Google it. They are doing this in the US and England.
What brave person decided that they would try this very old school method?

The original intent of this thread has been hijacked by the 2 of you and no discussion that is helpful to anyone is taking place.

13

Oh hello Spinning Man,

I wondered if you’d drop by again. You sound pretty angry in your post and not particularly level-headed today. I’m not intertested in discussing this with you if that’s your frame of mind. There is lots to say about the things you wrote but no point if you’re going to freak out on the board again and take all of this personally. If you are heavily into chiropractic and NUCCA etc, go for your life. I’m simply interested in seeing a little bit of evidence from a guy who talks about innate wisdom shifting the pelvis, a 97% cure rate and who apparently sells chiropractic board games on the side. Nobody knows this guy from Adam. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. I call a spade a spade.

Why don’t you do yourself a favour and read a book such as Trick or Treatment to get a rigourous and balanced view of the literature on chiropractic. You’ll find it quite illuminating. I really don’t think you have the foggiest idea about correlation and causation or realise that anecdote is just that – anecdote. After that digest the “Migraine Brain” and “Heal Your Headache” and then you might make a more educated remark about neck pain.

If you have an axe to grind with any of the above maybe you can have it out somewhere else – the MD forum perhaps. On the other hand, if you can keep it together and leave the ad hominem attacks out, I’m happy to discuss it.

Best … Scott – aka the dictator :wink:

ps. I do have to answer your remark about deletions. The thread with Hanks’s discussion in it was lost by the database and not deleted. I archived it and then someone asked me to move it back to the discussion area which I did. I left a “shadow” copy of it in the archive. When I then deleted the thread out of the main discussion as it went further down the list, it took out the shadow thread in the archive as well. I never delete threads (unless it’s spam) and was not happy when Hank’s thread was lost because there was some excellent discussion in there on science and quackery. My apologies for that.

14

Spinning Man,

You make a fair call that I am having a hissy fit (I can’t speak for Scott) - I am having a bad day so my tolerance for this nonsense is low. I disagree that either of us have got off point. I thinK Dr Burcon did that with his rambling, outlandish, irrelevant and unsupported claims. As far as I know, no-one here has Bell’s Palsy or Parkinson’s and even if they did I think the suggestion that whiplash is the culprit and subluxation is the cure is a bit kooky. Dizzy Izzy raised an interesting and reasonable suggestion about the role of neck pain as a trigger for migraine. Dr Burcon then made a huge leap that whiplash is the cause and chiropractic is the cure. I repeat - it is he who got off point, not I.

Dr Burcon has dropped in on this forum out of nowhere. I have asked him to introduce himself and to clarify his interest in this forum which, given the claims he is making I think is not unreasonable.

Spinning Man we have not heard from you since the last time chiropractic was discussed and you made a bit of a to-do that you would not return, as I and others asked questions and did not agree with you. Yet here you are once more, leaping to the defence of chiropractic within hours of it coming up again. Are you lurking in the shadows, keeping a watching brief, ready to express your outrage once more that anyone dare question chiropractic??

I genuinely do not understand your deep and intense defensiveness towards me, or Scott, or anyone who asks questions about chiropractic. You say it works for you so what do you care if others disagree? No-one is forcing you to stop this miracle cure.

Scott is a moderator on this forum and I think he has made it very clear that this forum supports the scientific, evidence based approach. As I understand it people are of course free to raise whatever they wish but as I’ve said before I really don’t think it’s unreasonable that any treatments be held up to critical inquiry. If you wish to have an unquestioning chiropractic love-in then I’m sure there are forums out there which will do just that. This is not one of them.

Victoria

15

I had a miscarriage and a D & C, two weeks later, whilst lifting something I had low back pain then it moved down to the coccyx. Still not sure if the problem is from maybe a facet joint as curl ups are aggravating the coccyx pain. I had a massage and when the neck was extended and turned to the right it caused a small vertigo attack.

I did read that a lady who had her coccyx fixed got rid of her headaches.

The head tilt bit was interesting. I have found that doing the exercises where you bend your head down to one shoulder then the other makes me dizzier, so if one shoulder being higher than the other could cause your head to be tilted slightly to one side, that may be contributing to the dizziness.

I do find that having my head bent over a laptop for a few hours brings on bad neck pain and more dizziness. I think it all gets very complicated because when I was looking up basilar migraine ages ago, there was talk about the vertebral arteries (circle of willis, something like that), where the artery from the neck branches out towards the ears (correct me if I am wrong), they said that this artery went into spasm and this caused the basilar migraine.

Christine

1 Like
16

My Best friend Lisa had a friend, who died during a neck adjustment, of stroke.
Before this Lisa was “chiro mad” for her back probs, she has never seen another chiro since.
Very sad indeed.
Prior to this, I had about 15 adjustments, with a family friend chiro, he promised the world and I gained nothing but extra dizziness and an empty pocket…

J

17

Dizzyizzy,

I managed to find two of the articles you posted initially but can’t get the last one. See below.

Christine – I wanted to make a few points about what you had been told by a chiro – about your neck being too straight and one shoulder being lower than the other etc (I was told the exact same thing and also that one leg was slightly shorter than the other). I don’t think you’d find a single person on the planet with a perfectly aligned body the way chiros will tell you they should be aligned. People with significant pathology in the lower back or neck don’t necessarily have pain or any other problem for that matter. Everyone has some sort of degeneration in the spine … it’s a fact of life as we age. It doesn’t mean we all wind up dizzy or with back aches. And as you pointed out some 50% of the population has some sort of scoliosis yet half the population aren’t crippled suffering from so-called subluxations. I still don’t have an answer from any chiropractor on how they deal with a quadripalegic who has little function from the neck down and is stuck in a wheel chair. You’d think such a spine would be the subluxation from hell and the body would cease to function according to chiro theory.

Anyway, here are the papers:

Jen – very sorry to hear about your friend. I’d like to know what the statistics are on these sorts of accidents.

Scott

18

Oh dear

I just got in from work and saw my thread now has 16 replies! Obviously I didn’t realise I was stirring up a hornet’s nest here, but anyway, quite good entertainment.

I suspected Dr Whatshisname’s reply would kindle the flame. When he posted it was literally within minutes of him joining the forum - do you think these people scan the internet forums looking for mentions of ‘neck’ and then pounce? I was going to report it as spam but then decided to leave it. His reply didn’t actually fit my posting - it was sort of generic. I didn’t really mention any symptoms, certainly not whiplash. And he sort of missed the whole point of my posting, which was to look at non-chiropractic views on dizziness and/or migraine from medics and physios. I might ask my neurophysio colleague at work what she thinks about it.

Anyway, we must remember that there are quite a few ‘mainstream’ medical treatments out there that don’t have a very good evidence base. Here in the UK we have a government organisation called NICE - National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness - a sort of watch dog who advise the government on what treatments should be available on the NHS and which ones shouldn’t due to lack of evidence. There is a danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater here as should a treatment be withdrawn until PROVEN effective? This could take years if the disease/disorder is relatively rare. I work in a relatively young profession, Speech and Language Pathology, and our evidence base, although growing, is very small and we use other criteria such as ‘clinical consensus’ and ‘expert opinion’, to decide whether we employ a certain practice. RCT’s have not been useful in demonstrating our effectiveness in some types of speech disorders following say stroke, and we use Single Case Studies (using eg. time series analysis of a treatment). But there was a potentially damaging Lancet report a few years ago which claimed ‘RCTs show Speech and Language Therapy doesn’t work’. Luckily we managed to produce evidence to the contrary and massive flaws in the study design.

However, unlike chiropractic, we have never claimed stuff works which hasn’t got compelling evidence. This requires blind faith. Interestingly, there is debate going on here about whether the NHS should continue to fund homeopathy - I can’t believe we still do!

The ‘Trick or Treatment’ book and a related column he wrote for the Guardian Newspaper caused Simon Singh to be subject to a Libel case from the British Chiropractic Association in 2008. This resulted in a “furious backlash” resulting in the filing of formal complaints of false advertising against more than 500 individual chiropractors within one 24 hour period, one national chiropractic organization ordering its members to take down their websites, and Nature Medicine noting that the case had gathered wide support for Singh, as well as prompting calls for the reform of English libel laws. On 1 April 2010, Simon Singh won his court appeal for the right to rely on the defence of fair comment. On 15 April 2010, the BCA officially withdrew its lawsuit, ending the case.
(info obtained via Wiki).

There seems to be a big drive here in the UK to move away from ‘mystical’ treatments and demand hard science, despite government withdrawing funding from many universities in science departments.

Sorry, I’m on my high horse now and going off topic, but not really. I have a renewed faith in Betahistine being my saviour again and the scientific evidence for this is practically non-existent! And where’s the science for the food triggers? Are there any RCTs on that one?

Dizzy Izzy

19

Hi Jen,

Yes I had heard about that business with the neck on the sink in the haidressers. I absolutely hate it being done, I wriggle and squirm, my neck is in agony and yet I can see little old ladies sitting there looking quite comfortable, is it just our necks?? Nowadays I get a hairdresser come to the house and I bend forward and rinse it over the sink.

Scott, think you got some names mixed up with the posts, dizzyizzy and me, still, not to worry, same information. Forgot to say, the information on the neck being too bent or the other way round (cant remember) was not given to me by a chiro, but the NHS after a neck x ray.

I must admit I got no relief from chiros, but I feel they have their place in certain conditions. They do internal manipulation (oh lovely :shock:) and reach a point where we feel that not only are we having to live with this miserable illness, but there are a lot of people out there, making money out of our misfortunes, which is when we get angry

I am sure there are some genuine kind chiros out there trying to help. I had a phone call from one I had contacted the other day, he spoke for an hour on the phone (his phone bill) and was willing to write a letter to my GP to try and get me a referrel on the NHS to someone (he had looked at my images of the coccyx), he would be making no money out of me, just a kind genuine man.

Christine

20

Hi Dizzy Izzy,

What a great post from you. Very sensible, considered and reasonable. Thanks! I think where you differ from Dr Whatsit et al is that you have a cautious approach to new/emerging treatments. It is OK to say a treatment looks promising and be cautiously optimisitc. The problem is with people who are true believers and who make grand (and grandiose) claims and unsupported claims and who brook no dissent.

I think you are right about the lurking Spamsters - too much of a coincidence. Indeed, probably best to just ignore it but then we’d miss out on the fun of a spirited debate :slight_smile: .

BTW I like your photos from Mallorca. I’ve been on that train too. It was lovely. I was getting a little bit dispirited with Palma de Mallorca and the bloated sunburnt tourists. But then I got up early one morning and took that lovely train through olive groves and pretty countryside all the way to the end and then went for a walk along the cliffs finishing with a swim in those crystal clear and warm blue waters. Delightful!

Best
Vic