Here is what you can expect...
Upper Cervical Care is a highly-specialized approach to health, which results in a personalized experience here at Triad Upper Cervical Clinic.
Before Your First Visit...
New Patient Forms
We ask that you complete these prior to arriving for your first appointment and that you arrive a few minutes early. Dr. McIntyre schedules a full, dedicated hour for each new patient appointment and uses that time for the consultation and comprehensive exam.
Caffeine and Medication
Caffeine and medications can have an effect on the accuracy of thermographic scans due to how they interact with the body’s natural inflammatory response. Therefore, we ask that you refrain from drinking caffeine at least 2 hours prior and from taking medications 4 hours prior to your appointments, when possible.
First Visit
The first visit is 100% based in fact-finding. Dr. McIntyre meets with each patient individually to learn about your health history and current condition. This initial visit consists of a consultation, as well as neurological and structural exams, which often evidence the need for precision x-rays. Dr. McIntyre will spend up to an hour for this appointment. Click here for more information about the elements of the comprehensive exam.
Between the First and Second Visits:
Between your first and second visits, Dr. McIntyre studies the data collected at the first visit, and he prepares a care plan for how to address your case. This includes developing the X-rays, evaluating the data, and creating a care plan designed specifically for you.
Second Visit
The second visit is also an hour-long appointment. During the second visit, Dr. McIntyre goes over his findings with you. He shows you the specifics of your misalignment in your X-ray, and he discusses the structural/degenerative changes that may have occurred as a result. He again takes a thermographic scan of your neck with the expectation of seeing a similar scan to that of your first visit. Provided that the thermographic pattern for you is established, Dr. McIntyre will perform the first Upper Cervical correction in your care plan.
Immediately following this initial correction, you will be directed to a resting bed upon which you will rest for 20-30 minutes. This resting period is a crucial part of the correction process as it allows your body to adapt to the Upper Cervical correction. As mentioned above, the top bone of the neck is held in place only by muscle, which means the muscles which have held your misalignment must also adjust to the correction. The best way to achieve this is with time and rest.
During this visit, Dr. McIntyre will also give you written and verbal instructions on how to hold the correction and the details of the care plan he has designed for you.
Following Visits
Once you have received your first correction and are under care here at Triad Upper Cervical Clinic, your appointments can last anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes. The disparity in the length of the appointment is dependent upon whether or not you need a correction and its accompanying rest period. Dr. McIntyre determines the need for a correction at each visit based upon your individual body’s patterns, as indicated by the thermographic scan as well as your body balance.
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Not every visit will result in a correction; the objective is to retrain your body to hold the corrections as it was originally designed to do, and as it learns, the times between corrections will vary.