This spans an entire treatment over a year’s time.

Here’s part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

“Yeah you know me.” ~ Naughty By Nature 

You know how sometimes when you are treating someone that individual eventually reveals fairly important information that he or she forgot about.

Yeah that was totally me.

I’ve always had a stuffy nose as far back as I can remember; especially in the winter. The only time breathing felt incredibly easy was when I was eating paleo in college. I have progressively been losing my sense of smell as well.

Must be old age right?

When I spoke with Lori Thomsen about my recent experience, she mentioned at Pelvis that attaining neutrality in certain areas but not others could lead to a “pressure cooker” phenomenon. For example, if I have someone with a neutral neck and thorax, lower extremity symptoms may possibly be more common.

In my case, I had a neutral pelvis at the time my wisdom teeth were pulled. Pull out wisdom teeth and my nasal airway goes crazy. Guess where the pressure went?

It was time to see an ENT.

ENT Begins

After viewing my CT scan and airway, my ENT concluded I have patho-scoliosis.

More specifically, airway scoliosis. He found a deviated septum and some enlarged turbinates. These two factors could have a large impact on my breathing capabilities.

To me this made a lot of sense. If you read this article, a nostril will drive air to the ipsilateral lung. So depending on what nasal airway is blocked may dictate whether I am a Right BC or a superior T4.

Moreover, sensory information through the nose travels to the contralateral hemisphere. In my case, my left airway is a bit more open than my right, which would increase sensory input to my right hemisphere.

Per the RTMCC pattern, I actually should have a more open right airway. So this finding would be considered patho per PRI standards. Hence the pathoscoliosis.

Could this abnormality be a contributing factor as to why I am solid on my left side but struggle when I go back to my right? Or even why I’m left-handed? Purely theoretical of course, but something I play around with in my head. I think weird shit like that.

Surgery is not the first line of defense, so we started with conservative measures. I was given a nasal saline rinse and couple nasal sprays to reduce inflammation and symptoms.

Let me tell you, I could notice a difference with the first rinse.

 Standing Supported Alternating Reciprocal Nasal Saline Rinse

The very first nasal rinse treatment opened up a whole new world for me. I cleaned out the sinuses and immediately measured my horizontal abduction:

20 degrees to 45.

I think I found a new repositioning technique.

The coolest thing? I could smell again. It’s amazing the scents in my apartment and the clinic that I could now pickup that I never noticed before. It was an incredibly rich sensory experience. Sleep quality drastically improved within the first couple nights as well.

The only downside was the effects were not long lasting. It was time for phase two.

Nasal Adductor Pullback

About a month later I went back to the ENT and had an allergy test.

The good news is that I am not allergic to any foods. I can eat anything I want (yay). And actually I didn’t have many allergies at all.

The bad news is that I have a large allergy to perennial rye grass, which is extremely common in AZ. I also have a couple allergies to a few other weeds or molds, but nothing major.

The next step is to try immunotherapy to see if I can reduce my sensitivity to these allergens. This basically amounts to me taking oral drops for the next three years. The hope would be that the threat these allergens are to my system would become nonexistent.

I ought to notice some changes over the next 6 months. If not much symptom-wise is changing, surgery to reduce the turbinates and align the septum will be the likely next step.

If only I could tell the ENT that my symptom was limited cervical axial rotation.

The experiment continues…