Headaches and neck pain

My condition started with muscle spasm, headaches, stiffness in neck and inability to turn my head from side to side. As my condition progressed I had numbness in my left arm, and tingling in my fingers. I could not tilt my head back and look up without loss of balance and light headed feeling.

This condition started about ten years ago and became more acute approximately three years ago.  The treatment I received for many years was physical therapy and medication.  The physical therapy and drugs never solved the real problem, so on a visit to my primary care physician, I requested to see a chiropractor. My doctor said her would refer me to Dr. Barger.

 During my first visit with Dr. Barger, he explained what chiropractic could do with video tapes, x-rays and his explanation as to what my problem was.  He used the x-rays to show me the degenerated discs in my neck and explained the treatment that he felt could help me.  His recommendation was a series of seven visits over a period of three weeks.  In just this seven visits, I could not believe how much improvement had come, and how great I felt!  No headaches, most of the stiffness in my neck was gone and the numbness in my fingers was improving.  I was feeling better than I could have ever hoped for, or believed was ever possible. 

My hobbies are wood working, bicycle riding and walking and I never stopped even with the pain. Now I can performed these exercises virtually pain free!

My improvement has been so dramatic and has happened so fast that it seems unbelievable to me. I will be forever grateful to Dr. Barger!!

Bill Carey

I was working in my dogs' pen on a Thursday afternoon.  I heard a little pop (nothing a person would even pay attention to, just creaking bones) and a slight pain began in the back of my head. The next morning, the pain was still there, stronger. I took some advil and went to work, thinking the pain would disappear. Instead , with each passing hour it got stronger, traveling up the back of my head and making it harder to think. I have never left a job during a shift but that day I did.

By the end of the day the pain encompassed my entire head and had traveled down my neck and into my back.  The only relief I had was laying flat on my back, not moving. By Saturday morning, I couldn't sit up or walk across a room without excruciating pain.  I was scared.

My mother drove me to a med clinic and we sat in the car waiting for them to open. I had the seat reclined as far back as it would go and was trying not to move, but by the time I was sitting in front of the doctor I was wringing wet. I told him that I thought I had injured my neck while working in the pen.  He gave me a prescription for pain killers and sent me home. I survived the rest of Saturday and all of Sunday, by laying flat, not moving, taking pain killers that had no effect.

By Monday morning I was afraid to sit up, knowing the pain that small act would cause.  I was again sitting in the car waiting for the med clinic to open at nine. The doctor gave me tests for migraine headaches, thumping on my forehead and asking about vision distortions and again I told him I thought I had hurt myself in the pen. He told me there was nothing more he could do and sent me to the hospital.

At the hospital I again told the doctor that I thought I had hurt my neck while working in my dogs' pen, but instead of x-raying my neck, he told me the pain would not be reaching so far down my back, and that he thought I had either
Spinal Meningitis or a hemorrhage in my head.  He ordered a Cat Scan and called in a neurologist to give me a spinal tap. The neurologist took over my case, ordering test after test (no X-ray of course) never consulting with me until the next afternoon when she came to tell me there was nothing wrong with me, "It's just a headache." Then she dismissed me from the hospital, in the same conditon in which I had arrived with a prescription for the same pain killers as the med clinic doctor had originally prescribed. I was devastated. Hope was gone and I had no idea how I would survive. If I had had any room left in my head, it would have been filled with depression, but the pain left no space.

The only advantage to having all those tests, was the conviction that I had been right all along and the problem was my neck.  I got out the tlelphone book and something about Dr. Barger felt right to me (even though he was a little distance away). I called and was given an appointment that afternoon.

Dr. Barger actually listened to me! He took x-rays of my neck and did some minor manipulation. He made an appointment with me for the following day, and my recovery began.  He showed me on the x-ray where my neck had gone out of line and told me that to some extent it was attributable to an accident I had had years ago and that while in the pen, I finally come to the "final straw" as far as my neck was concerned.

I began treatments on a twice a week basis. The headache which had begun to rule my life was livable after the second visit and for the most part, gone by the third.  I was able to go back to work and eventually the fear of waking up in pain subsided.

I am down to treatments once every two to three weeks and am never afraid. I know that if anything goes wrong I can make a call and Dr. Barger will make space for me.

Thank you Dr. Barger,

Cathy Griffin