Michael came to his first appointment wearing a neck brace, and he wasn't taking it off casually. Without it, he explained, his whole body would start shaking within minutes. Full, uncontrollable tremors, every single day. He'd found exactly one way to stop them: pressing hard on a spot just underneath his ear until they faded. The episodes had already cost him his career in the Marines.
What was that spot under his ear?
The transverse process of the atlas, essentially the wing of the top vertebra, sits right there. Michael had spent years unknowingly performing crude pressure therapy on the exact structure causing his problem. When he described it, Dr. Miles told him, "I think you might be in the right place." I love that detail because it's how real clinical reasoning works. Patients often describe the answer themselves. A doctor's training is mostly knowing what to listen for.
The episodes themselves fit a pattern we see in severe craniocervical cases: massive motor discharge without loss of consciousness. Michael could talk through his tremors. That distinction, coherent throughout, is part of what separates this from seizure disorders, and it's why his medical discharge came with no useful diagnosis attached.
Does correction actually last for a case like this?
His was not an easy neck. Complicated injuries sometimes need a longer stabilization period and more careful management before the correction holds reliably. But the endpoint is what matters: the convulsions are fully resolved and have stayed that way for years, on the simple condition that he keeps his alignment. They aren't being managed with a brace anymore; they're gone. When people ask me why I devoted my career to this one region of the spine, cases like Michael's are the answer.
Where to find Dr. Miles
Dr. Joey Miles practices at Healthy Living Spinal Care in Hickory, North Carolina, and was among the first doctors in the country to earn the Craniocervical Junction Procedures diplomate. Call (828) 485-2990.