Postural Correction Gallery
These films are actual patients of Dr. H. Edward Camp treated here at his office in the Inner Richmond district of San Francisco. The postural correction is graphically represented by the X-Rays but the real story is the fact that these patients recovered from a broad variety of symptoms that in most cases had lasted for many years. The credit goes in large part to the patients who dedicated themselves to this program for two months and did most of the work to take charge of their own symptoms. It is a team effort and kudos to those who go the distance. Congratulations on your success and improved health.
There are four curves in the spine that are supposed to be there. These are termed “Cervical Lordosis” “Thoracic Khyphosis” “Lumbar Lordosis” and “Sacral Khyphosis.” What you the lay person will see on these X-Rays is a red arc depicted on the films. What we want to see is the posterior aspect of the vertebral bodies aligned on that red arc.
This patient presented as a 34 year old female with a severe pain across the shoulder’s and between the shoulder blades. If you look at the before film, you can see the head is shifted forward placing a lot of aberrant stresses on the upper spine. For every half inch of anterior translation there is ten times the stress on the muscles holding the head up. You can also note that there is a reversal of the cervical curve starting at the fourth cervical vertebra. She presented with an atlas plane line of 10 degrees and a cervical curve of 35 degrees.
On the after you will note that while the curve is not perfect, it is vastly improved with a more even curve throughout the cervical region. She now has an atlas plane line of 24 degrees and a cervical curve of 55 degrees.
The patient left care at my office symptom free.
This patient presented as a 34 year old male with a history of ten years of chronic low back pain. At six foot five, 285 pounds and a history of Muay Thai martial arts fighting. We discovered an old fracture with some anterior slippage in the lumbar vertebra which may or may not have impacted on thespinal cord. (In the absence of an MRI we cannot say for sure.) The Cervical radiographs showed upon presentation a poker straight lower cervicle spine with some slight curve above C-5. The atlas plane line was twenty degrees and the cervical curve was forty five degrees. On the post treatment film you can see a sixty degree cervical curve, three degrees short of perfection and a thirty five degree atlas plane line,. He has resumed full contact martial arts and has reported no pain for the three months since his release date.
This patient presents as a 23 year old female with chronic low back pain of three years duration. She is one of the rare ones who presented with a horrible lumbar spine. You will notice on the before picture that the back borders of the lumbar vertebra don’t even line up.
Believe it or not most of the low back patients in my office present with low back pain and relatively normal lumbar spines so we don’t often take an after view of the lumbar region. This case was a rare one hence why I chose to share it with you.
Note that the vertebra on the before view are behind the red line which represents where the vertebra would be in the ideal spinal alignment. You can clearly see the change in the alignment in the after as the vertebral bodies are all on the red line. Also note that the Sacral base angle has improved from 27 degrees on the before to 47 degrees on the after this is a significant improvement. This took about five months of care but the patient was released pain free after years of discomfort.
This patient presented as a 42 year old male with a six year history of numbness and tingling down the right arm past the elbow and into the hand. He also complained of loss of range of motion in the neck and upper back that was causing him to quit sports such as snow skiing and surfing. MRI studies indicated he had bulging disc’s at C5-6,and C-6-7. He had received two months of Physical Therapy two times a week to no avail and was instructed not to have his neck manipulated by a Chiropractor.
His neck when he presented had no curve whatever, he had a two and a half inch anterior displacement of the head over the thorax, an atlas plane line of negative 2 degrees and an apparent cervical curve of 30 degrees. At the end of his two months of treatment he had no numbness in the right arm, no neck pain and has increased his exercising and surfing to his pre injury status. The atlas plane line was reduced from a negative two degrees to postive ten degrees, and the curve progressed from thirty degrees to foty eight degrees. His forward head posture has reduced from an inch and seven eights anterior to one inch and an eight. You can note on the films the restoration of the curve and posterior movement of the skull. While symptom free, he is still under care, we’ll keep you posted.
This patient presents as a 26 year old female with numbness and tingling in both hands. She is a computer data specialist and spends hours on the computer daily. The numbness became progressively worse over the two years preceding her arrival at my office. She had seen am MD and was diagnosed with bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome and it was suggested she have surgical intervention on both wrists where they intended to resect the flexor retinaculum thus enlarging the space for the median nerve. Her cervical radio-graphs show a reversed cervical curve. The atlas plane line is at negative 5 and the curve is at five degrees. After three weeks of care she had numbness at the end of her work day but not as severe as prior to care. She was released after three months of care with none of the numbness at all. Her post X-Ray showed an atlas plane line of eighteen degrees and the cervical curve is now at twenty five degrees. While this is not perfection by any stretch, she left symptom free and avoided the surgery altogether.
This patient presents as a thirty six year old male with “I have pain across my upper back into the shoulder blades and I store my stress across my shoulders and in my neck.” I call it computer geek syndrome and see it at least five times a year. Needless to say he’s been working on computers for about a decade or more and as such has a severe anteriority of the skull over the thorax. This has been going on for so long there is calcification of the anterior longitudinal ligament which you can see as “Chips” of bone on front of the vertebral bodies where they meet at the surface of the disc. This patient now has no pain whatsoever and comes in infrequently for a tune up as he recognizes he functions better overall when he has the infrequent visit.
This patient presents as a 22 Year old female who works standing on an uneven surface doing flower arrangements. As a result of her employment she has pain in the neck, electrical shock sensations in the right arm, occasional numbness in the right hand and frequent headaches. You can note on the film her neck is actually bent the wrong direction. In the after film, there is a clear improvement. While this is not the “Perfect curve” she was released two months later (in 1997) with no symptoms. To date, the symptoms have never returned.
