Chiropractic Work on Neck Begins!

Day 2 of chiropractic work on my back, upper body - shoulders, neck, jaw! Feeling a ton of relief and tension reduced. 20 more sessions to go.

I know a lot of musicians with dystonia say chiropractic help doesn't work. But for me it is important since I've always carried a lot of tension and problems in my neck. I can't tell you how many times people, especially teachers, would tell me to let my shoulders down and I would reply, "I can't. It's not like I'm forcing them into this position. They are bulky and stuck this way. It takes an absurd amount of work to unwind them. It's also the whole upper body that's this way....it doesn't derive in the shoulders."

When I was 15 my neck muscles were so tight that I couldn't move my head/face to the right. My mother who was a nurse practitioner took me to a neurologist because she thought maybe it was something worse because massage and relaxants didn't help. The neurologist said it was too early to tell if I had cervical dystonia, but most likely not the case as it is rare to onset at my age and I didn't really have more of the symptoms associated with it besides lack of range of motion and zingers attacking the back side of my neck/head. The DYT1 gene also did not show up in my blood work, and he said I would have known in early childhood if this is what I had.

Nonetheless they wanted to play it safe and gave me 10 large needles of botox injections around the base of my neck and 2 months of deep tissue massage/trigger point and it went away.

However, the tension in my neck has always been there. I saw a chiropractor briefly in my mid-20's after I was diagnosed with embouchure dystonia, but only because I threw my back out. The only work they did was on my lower back and hips. However, I never thought of using chiropractic work as a means to help with the tension in my neck and upper body.

That is why I've decided to try it now. Especially after I was informed that it is part of what is getting in the way of my recovery. I know a lot of people don't believe in psychics, but I was told by a medical intuitive that the tension in my neck and upper body has always been due to my spine. That it needs a lot of adjusments around my neck to fix it because it's never been addressed. He said it's been limiting me from recovering from the rest of my embouchure dystonia, that it was blocking my jaw movement, including nerves, and contributing to my lack of sensory feedback. This along with continuing my current rehabilitation strategies should show results.

As you know, I already work hard on relieving tension in my upper body through upper back stretches, shoulder, neck, tongue, and facial stretches. My primary form of rehabilitation has been (deprogramming and rebuilding) relieving tension and then finding a window of opportunity to get leverage and work on rebuilding a new neuropathway in that area that feels most natural, along with everything else - modifications, adaptations, etc. The reliving of the tension has contributed to a lot of my recovery, so I'm hoping the chiropractic work will as well.

Right away the chiropractor told me I need a lot of work on my neck and shoulders. He could tell it was pulling on the right side of my face.

Wish me luck!! I wish you could feel how much relief I feel in my shoulders and neck currently. It's surprising how much additional tension is lingering in there