Sea + Spine Part 2: X-Ray Results
For a lot of people the New Year is a springboard to get their wellbeing in check.
Correcting your spine and improving your posture may not be on the top of your resolutions but since it's the foundation of the body, it’s worth giving it some special attention.
If you’ve been following the blog, you know that’s exactly what Dina did last year at Sea + Spine with Dr. Blair Chowansky and Dr. Hannah Irons!
In our last Sea + Spine post we went over what to expect at your first visit and what the tests mean.
Now, let’s take a look at Dina’s progress since she started going in July 2020.
***Editor’s Note: We’ve annotated the X-Rays to be a little bit easier to read and understand in the context of any changes that have occurred. We’ve also created some overlaps to help you understand some of the movement happening in the spine. Because of the nature of how the original X-Rays are cropped and sized, the overlaps may not be 100% accurate and are only for additional clarity. Refer to the Blue and Green X-Rays for the original notations and lines. The blue scans and anything highlighted in blue are the X-Rays from July 2020 and the green scan and anything highlighted in green are the X-Rays from December 2020.
Like Some Hips, X-rays Don’t Lie
The most exciting part of your Sea + Spine experience might be comparing your X-Rays.
Even though you can probably feel the changes in your body, it’s really affirming to see what your body is doing in there. Ya can’t make that up!
Side View: Neck & Shoulders
The average human head weighs about 11lbs. To put that into perspective, the heaviest legal bowling ball weighs 16 pounds. Your body carries this weight around every day, it’s built to. However, when you are out of alignment your head actually feels heavier to your body.
Let’s start at the top.
Your head should be over your shoulders Your head should be held over your shoulders. At the start of her visits, Dina’s head was held 49.6mm (almost 2 inches) in front of her shoulders. It doesn’t sound like much but that’s like 20lbs of force on her spine, that’s an additional 9lbs that her neck was carrying around. Compare that to the 37.9mm (inch and a half) that her X-Ray shows us from December. She managed to shave 5lbs off that original weight on her neck and spine.
Red lines and info from the initial X-Ray & the yellow lines & info are the improvements.
Blue highlights are from the initial visit and the green highlights are the improvements
Another important improvement is the curve of her neck. A lot of times we think we want our spine to be straight. While that’s true to an extent, there are parts of our spine that are naturally curved. When those parts start to straighten out, it’s not good. The X-Ray measures any “loss of curve” in the neck. The reading for the curve should be about 45.
When she started it measured a 12 out of 45, and her loss of curve was at 77%.
At her reevaluation, she was 8 points closer to that ideal of 45, with her new reading at 20/45.
We can also see that she has less of a loss of curve with a new reading of 55%
It can be kind of hard to wrap your head around, so if you look at the image on the right above, you can see the difference overlapped. The green is her improved X-Ray, while the blue is her original X-Ray. There’s definitely a dramatic difference in the curve here.
Side View: Low Back
Staying with the side view, which is where you want to see curves, we move down to the lower back. The ideal number should be 35 for this region. Dina started out with an 8 with a loss of curve of 77% here as well. Since then she’s improved, with a 16 out 35 and a reduced loss of curve of 55%.
In addition her sacrum has adjusted its angle. The sacrum is the bone all the way at the end of your spine, and connects your pelvic bone in the back. Basically, if you put your hands on your hips, and move them both toward your spine until your fingers touch, you’re probably by your sacrum. You can see that its tilt has increased to help that spinal curvature. This angle should eventually be in the 25 - 35 range, so at 24.11 degrees, she’s almost there!
Front View: Neck & Shoulders
There’s just a whole skeleton inside you, can you believe?
Unlike the side view, here from the front you’re going to want to see less degrees of curve.
The numbers here are different degrees of rotation that the spine is experiencing. Initially Dina was experiencing 8 degrees of rotation in her body, however by July she had dropped down to half that. Eventually you don’t want to see any rotation going on, but it’s clear that things are moving in the right direction.
Front View: Lower Back
Most notably, on the front view of Dina’s low back, there’s a tilt where her pelvis is. At the start of her sessions, the tilt was at 5.52 degrees and by December it had gone down to 3.05. Ideally this number will get down to zero and her pelvis will be even on both sides.
You can also see there’s less of a curvature in her spine.
The Core Score Results
Besides your X-Rays, you may remember your first visit to Sea + Spine involved 3 tests, the Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Scan, Surface Electromyography (sEMG) Scan, and the Thermographic Scan. If you need a refresher on what those are, click here for an overview of Dina’s first visit. You’ll get these tests done at the beginning, middle and end of 6 months and then be reevaluated as to what your treatment should be moving forward.
Those individual scores are averaged together to make your overall Core Score. It’s important to note that these scores can be influenced by things you’re experiencing that day. For example, Dina’s score dipped a bit in on her second evaluation. Dr. Blair recalled that Dina had been experiencing some unrelated neck pain that day when she came in for her test, so that’s a possible factor. It’s also worth noting that your body is going through a big transition. Imagine doing something one way for years and then being told you had to adjust to a new regime. That can be an uncomfortable shift, so sometimes the transition scores reflect that.
Overall, Dina’s progress is going well and she’s in the yellow, transitional phase of her treatment rather than the orange, challenged phase she started in.
Let’s compare Dina’s individual tests.
Heart Rate Variability
July 2020
Sept 2020
This scan shows us how your nervous system’s adapting to stress. From left to right it’s divided into the sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (calming, brake pedal) nervous system aspects. Even though both her initial visit and her second evaluation are the same number, you can see from the chart that both results are very different. By the second visit, she’s handling stress better, but her autonomic system is still not balanced. What about by the 3rd visit?
That pose speaks for itself! What a dramatic shift in the balance and activity. She’s completely in the green, with her autonomic nervous system almost completely in balance.
Surface Electromyography (sEMG) Scan
Basically, this test measures how much energy you’re using to to hold up your posture. White and green are the goal here. As you might imagine, black is no good. It actually means the reading in that area is off the charts. The second visit on the right, shows the discomfort Dina was likely feeling that day in her neck with the addition of the black bar on the top left. Let’s see how she improved in the 3rd visit.
The black is gone! That’s a big deal. While the red does mean areas of tightness and exertion, it’s not uncommon during the transitional phase since, as we mentioned, the body will experience some discomfort while working to a new position.
Thermographic Scan
This scan is similar to the sEMG scan in that it measures the differences on either side of the spine in sections, but this time it’s evaluating the temperature. You can also see in the 2nd evaluation, that spike on the left side of the neck, likely due to the discomfort Dina was experiencing that day. It’s interesting how the tests corroborate each other. Let’s see if there was improvement in the 3rd visit.
This has been mostly consistent number wise but you can certainly see a shift. In all likelihood that’s the additional stress of the body adjusting. It’s better to see some movement than none at all, which would mean the current treatment wasn’t working, so even though there are some red spikes on the right neck area, it’s still a positive improvement.
Final Thoughts:
“Faster Than Expected”
Dina’s definitely made some significant progress with Sea + Spine.
Dr. Blair and Dr. Hannah certainly seem to think so.
Dr. Hannah: “She’s progressing faster than I expected. A lot of times when people really have that straight low back it can take longer to correct than the neck. When you think about it, it’s over 5 months, which seems like a long time, but it’s really not. It’s been X amount of years that she’s had these issues and for her body to get to that point, it’s kind of a short amount of time [in comparison].”
Dr. Blair: And it’s almost every single angle in her spine got better. So to have everything move in the right direction is really awesome!
What do they attribute her progress to? Doing the work.
Dr. Blair: I think she put in the work. She was here for every appointment, she was being active outside of her visits. She was using the tools like the wobble cushion and using laying on the spinal moldings. If you’re doing the home care stuff we recommend, that really bolsters the adjustments.
We can’t thank Sea + Spine enough for going through this information with us and just being some of the best darn Chiropractors around. If you’re ready to make an appointment, visit their website at www.asburyparkchiropractor.com/ and follow them on Instagram at @seaspine_chiro. Say hi to Jasmine for us!