Hi Greg and Brummygirl,
Greg, what you describe sounds quite different from the atlasprofilax I'm familiar with--and which helped me so much. I went back to an online post I made a while back, where I gave a pretty thorough description of it. I'll go ahead and paste it below, so you and Brummygirl can compare what you have in mind with what I'm trying to describe.
Something you may find interesting, is that when I visited my regular chiropractor after getting the atlasprofilax technique done, he took one look at me and exclaimed,
"What have you been up to? You're whole facial structure has changed!" -- My height increased by about a 1/4" of an inch--which is not an uncommon occurrence. My whole chest cavity felt like it had been lifted as well. It was a very subjective feeling, but it felt like it had raised up like 2-3 inches or so. -- Had
lots of other improvements as well.
The last I heard, there's only one chiropractor in the U.S. that does this technique, and he lives in Minneapolis (Dr. Brian Elijah, ND, DC). I met him when I took my sister and nephew to see him. He mentioned to me it's very frustrating for him to go to Chiropractic conventions, where he often feels some sort of compulsion to stand up, and tell his colleagues that "they've got it all wrong". But he knows they're not ready to hear it. As I recall, he considers the atlasprofilax technique to be the foundation upon which all other techniques should be based.
On the way home from the visit, both my sister and nephew marveled by how much clearer their sinuses were feeling. Given that, I can see where greater energy flows in the sinus areas could positively affect any tinnitus symptoms originating from that area.
For me, I believe I got the greatest improvement from having chronic pressure released from my vagus nerve. I just this past week learned there's an "auricular branch of the vagus nerve". So I now have a better understanding of how somebody getting the atlasprofilax which relieves even a minimal amount of pressure on the vagus nerve could have it positively affect tinnitus--such as in the above videos I posted.
Just to mention, there are other practitioners--such as cranial sacral therapists--who do this technique as well. The practitioner who did mine (Michael Hane) works out of the N. California area (Grass Valley). My understanding is there's only about a dozen practitioners in the U.S., but about 200-300 in Europe. I think it originated in Switzerland in the 1990's.
Greg, a good friend of mine has a chronic carotid artery problem, which I think she once had surgery on. She was warned to
never have any kind of chiropractic treatment. So she was very hesitant about doing this, but decided to watch how it was done. Being very intuitive, she quickly discerned that it was really quite safe, and decided to have it done. She was also got a lot of benefit from having it done.
Here's the AP description:
Atlas Profilax practitioners prefer to use the word "repositioning" the atlas when referring to what they actually do. Michael Hane explained to me that repositioning the atlas is somewhat akin to moving a boulder. Not particularly easy to "position" into place, but once it's done, it's fairly difficult for it to move back out of place. Apparently, this is totally different from a chiropractic technique, which may manipulate or adjust the atlas, but doesn't reposition it. Thus, there's an easy tendency for a chiropractic atlas adjustment to not hold, because the atlas stays in it's misaligned position.
There's never any kind of "pop" when doing the AP as there often is with Chiropractic. Brief Description: A small vibrating tool with a soft felt cover is gently pressed up against the atlas (behind the ear). It normally takes a few minutes of methodical vibrating and gentle pressure to finally allow the atlas (and associated ligaments) to "let go" of their chronic position. Michael says it's become quite easy for him to detect when this "letting go" occurs and the atlas slides back into place. There's apparently two "pins" in the skull area that then keep it locked into place.
I feel the AP repositioning is actually far safer than traditional chiropractic "popping" techniques, and more effective than the gentle NUCCA techniques (I did NUCCA for many years, getting relief, but always needing regular adjustments). I'm not trying to criticize these techniques, because they do work. They just didn't work for me longer term. I should add however, that AP didn't "cure" all my structural ailments. I still continue to look for various techniques to address and help stabilize my structural issues. Nasal Specific and Egoscue techniques are high on my list of things that have helped me considerably.
I decided to do the AP realizing it may do nothing for me, but felt the risk of not trying it was greater than the risk of paying $250 for something that may very well help me. --- Over a period of several decades, I spent thousands of dollars for various kinds of chiropractic and physical therapy for chronic neck and back pain. The AP ended up doing far more for me than all this other care put together. So in my case, the one-time fee of $250 feels like a relative bargain price. Another nice thing is that if another AP "repositioning" may be needed, there's NEVER an extra charge after the initial $250.
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