Low Back Pain: Can Upper Cervical Care Help Avoid Surgery?

Posted on25 May 2024,in

By Dr. Rusty Lavender, D.C. — upper cervical chiropractor, Lavender Family Chiropractic, Sarasota, FL. Reviewed and updated October 2026.

Our complete guide to upper cervical chiropractic care in Sarasota explains what the top two vertebrae control, how we measure them with 3D imaging, and what a correction feels like.

Low back pain, if severe enough, can devastate a person’s life. It robs them of doing activities that most take for granted. Medically their solution is usually painkillers, muscle relaxers, or cortisone shots. If the problem is severe enough the last resort is surgery.

Upper Cervical care has helped thousands of low back pain sufferers regain their health. Thousands of others have avoided low back disc surgeries, cortisone shots, and long-term pain-killing medications.

Want to avoid back surgery?

You might need to find out more about spinal stability and the spine as an engineering marvel. Your spine is dependent heavily on two chief systems to maintain what amounts to a tower of blocks (vertebrae) aligned with millimeter precision. The spinal vertebrae are held together by muscles, ligaments, tendons, and soft tissue. The muscular tone is crucial to spinal alignment, healthy discs, and normal posture.

Therefore, knowing what controls spinal muscle tone is key to understanding not only how to avoid disc injury but also how to correct it. The brainstem, located in the upper cervical spine is paramount in whether spinal muscle tone is balanced or not. This part of the nervous system controls spinal muscle balance. Imbalance can lead to low back pain.

People who have balanced healthy posture have a good neurological tone emanating from proper brain stem function. This indicates that the alignment of the upper cervical spine is healthy. However, when someone sustains a neck injury the opposite can be true. Whiplash-type injuries can cause a spinal misalignment in the neck that can result in irritation of the brainstem and subsequently cause a spinal imbalance and low back pain.

When the spine is imbalanced it leads to an asymmetrical distribution of weight throughout the spine. With time discs can become more stressed on one side compared to the other resulting in weakness. In time repetitive dresses and strains in an imbalanced manner can result in disc bulge and injury. Most people who suffer from the first symptoms of disc Injury think that the first symptom is when the injury began.

However, understanding that most disc bulges are the result of long-term spinal imbalances sheds a different light on the problem.

Whether you are looking to avoid low back disc problems in the future or find yourself in an acute disc bulge crisis now, correcting upper cervical spine misalignments can allow your brain- stem to regain control over your spinal muscles and lead to recovery and prevention.

So what’s the upshot? In case you’ve got chronic low back pain or you want to avoid back surgery, your physician should at least be thinking about the role the brainstem plays as one potential reason for your problem! What does an upper cervical doctor do? There are only about 150 trained Blair upper cervical chiropractors in the world. This niche technique limits its focus to the upper neck, brain stem, and skull region.

The concept of upper cervical chiropractic has to do with the brain stem, which comes out of the head through the top two bones of the neck, known as the atlas (C1) and axis (C2). The brain stem works like a switchboard operator, controlling all of the messages between the brain and the body.

The goal of an upper cervical chiropractor is to correct spinal misalignments that resulted from a prior injury. By taking precise Cbct or digital x-ray images, the doctor can make precise, gentle corrections to restore normal Joint motion and allow for normal neurological function.

If you or someone you love is suffering from low back pain or disc bulge it would be prudent to investigate this unique procedure that has helped thousands at their wit’s end. You might just find it changes your life. We hope this blog has been informative and leads to health recovery for those in need!

What the Research Says About Low Back Pain and Spinal Care

Low back pain is one of the most studied conditions in manual medicine. A 2019 meta-analysis of 47 trials in chronic low back pain found that spinal manipulation produced improvement similar to recommended therapies such as exercise and better than therapies guidelines do not recommend, with serious adverse events rare (Rubinstein et al., BMJ 2019). For acute episodes, a JAMA review reached a similar conclusion: manipulation was associated with modest gains in pain and function, and side effects were minor and short-lived, mostly muscle soreness (Paige et al., JAMA 2017). A UK evidence report likewise rated manipulation and mobilization as effective for acute, subacute and chronic low back pain (Bronfort et al., Chiropr Osteopat 2010).

To be direct about the limits: those trials studied general spinal manipulation, and research on upper cervical chiropractic for low back pain is limited to case reports and small studies. One review proposes that spinal adjustments change how the central nervous system processes input from the spine, which may be why a correction at the top can influence how the rest of it is carried (Haavik & Murphy, J Electromyogr Kinesiol 2012). The largest prospective study of upper cervical care reported high patient-rated improvement with no serious adverse event across 1,090 patients (Eriksen et al., BMC Musculoskelet Disord 2011). Our approach is to image the atlas in 3D, correct what the imaging shows, and re-measure, so any change in how you carry your back is tracked rather than assumed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why would an upper cervical chiropractor look at the neck for low back pain?

Because the low back is often paying for a problem that starts at the top. The body keeps the eyes level, so when the atlas is misaligned, the shoulders tilt, the pelvis rotates, and one leg functions shorter than the other. The low back absorbs that compensation every step. We measure the atlas on 3D CBCT, correct it, and track the nervous system response with thermography.

Can upper cervical care help me avoid back surgery?

Surgery decisions belong with you and your surgeon, and we never promise to avoid it. What we offer is a measured look at whether the upper neck is driving your pelvic compensation. Many patients with chronic low back pain have never had the atlas assessed. If imaging shows a misalignment, correcting it may change the load on the low back. Results vary by person.

What does a low back evaluation at your Sarasota office involve?

We take a history, assess posture and leg-length balance, and perform 3D CBCT imaging of the upper cervical spine along with a baseline thermography scan. If the atlas is misaligned, we explain how it connects to your low back and outline an individual care plan. Our office is at University Parkway and Whitfield, minutes from Lakewood Ranch and Bradenton. Call (941) 243-3729 to schedule an evaluation.

How does head position affect the low back?

The head weighs ten to twelve pounds. Carried off center, it shifts the body’s center of gravity, and the spine and pelvis twist to keep it balanced. That twist loads the lumbar discs and sacroiliac joints unevenly. Correcting the atlas lets the pelvis level, which many patients feel as a change in their low back without the low back being touched. Thermography confirms the nervous system response.

Does posture matter once the atlas is corrected?

Yes. Hours of looking down at phones or slouching at a desk pull the head forward and can unsettle a fresh correction. We coach patients on sitting, sleeping, and screen position so the correction holds. Thermography at each visit shows whether it is holding; when scans stay stable, visits are spaced out. There are no preset packages, and care is reassessed every visit.