Many patients who come from high-velocity & high force chiropractic practices may wonder how the adjustment can be so slight, barely felt and still be effective. I felt the same way the first time I received a NUCCA correction. (Notice I didn’t say adjustment, because it was so much more.) I’d been adjusted by “traditoinal” chiropractors for years and usually got a slight amount of relief, but nothing that lasted. But boy did I know I’d been adjusted.. I’d been twisted up like a pretzel and popped very loudly for most of my childhood and my first 15 years as an adult. So when my first NUCCA doc did the very light, gentle procedure and took the post X-rays I was so skeptical. Until a few days later when my chronic sciatica began to ease off. Then 6 months later when it was gone completely I knew I had found the solution to my problem. My sister and I decided to go to Palmer College some 1700 miles away to study chiropractic so we could qualify to become NUCCA doctors.
Since the adjustment is based on precise x-rays showing the exact 3-d location of the atlas under the patient’s skull, those same X-rays provide the exact line of correction. When the NUCCA doc has put her forces against the resistance in those angles, by touching with her hands and exerting forces from the entire shoulder girdle that resistance is gradually overcome. Sometimes it takes 20 or 30 ‘pulls’, sometimes many more. But when the NUCCA doc discerns that the atlas has stopped moving, its time to check the work. That’s where the leg check and the Spinemaster readings come into the picture again. If the postural distortion has cleared out, the patient is in alignment and requires no further work that day. If there are parts of the misalignment that are still present it will be apparent and the NUCCA doc can put the patient back on the table and continue adjusting until balance is achieved.
So rather than muscling a bone into place, a NUCCA doctor is able to use the patient position, gravity, and their own body mass against the resistance and tap the top bone back under the skull and over the spine. This gentle, precise movement is the NUCCA Correction.