Is your atlas bone out of alignment? (From Echo)

Is your atlas bone out of alignment?

9:00pm Wednesday 9th May 2012 in Health By Tom King

ATLAS, in classical mythology, was the deity who supported the earth and heavens on his titanic shoulders.

In human anatomy atlas is the name given to the bone at the top of the spine. It didn’t get its name for nothing.

This two-ounce morsel bears the full weight of the head, roughly equivalent to a 10-pin bowling ball, and is the key pivotal point of the upper body. Like its mythological namesake, it carries a big weight of responsibility.

Thorpe Bay osteopath and acupuncturist Matthew Voigts is one of a handful of medical specialists around the world who believe the atlas bone is key to a vast range of cures.

Could it really be a golden bullet that has lain unrecognised throughout the history of modern medicine? Matthew believes so. “The results,” he says, “can only be described as astonishing.”

Since qualifying in atlas treatment, he has practised the method for a year in Southend and at his London clinic in Harley Street. He has observed the results, and collected the testimonials. “In one year I’ve had more testimonials than most get in 20 years,” he says. Among the celebrity endorsements are fulsome tributes to the treatment by Royal Ballet principal ballerina Cindy Jourdain, and football boss Sir Trevor Brooking, Now he wants the wider world to know about the atlas cure. “I want to raise awareness of it because I am passionate about this technique,” he says.

A displaced atlas bone is, Matthew says, the root basis of a whole spectrum of familiar but distressing complaints, affecting millions of people. “But this gets missed, because the atlas doesn’t show up on X-rays or MRI scans. The jawbone gets in the way.”

Not that an X-ray is necessary. “The atlas is actually quite easy to detect with the fingers, and you can tell immediately whether or not it is symmetrically positioned,” Matthew says. “But a lot of practitioners don’t know this technique.”

With the atlas out of position, the rest of the body can distort, Matthew claims. Put the atlas to rights, and the results, says Matthew, are spectacular. “For instance,” says Matthew, “take those common cases where one leg has been longer than the other. After treatment the legs become level.”

The process of reinstating the atlas to its proper position is “gentle, non-invasive, and non-manipulative,” Matthew says. It involves the use of a hand-held device patented by the Swiss clinic where he trained.

The rotating head on the device, says Matthew, actually moves the atlas bone back into place. “It feels like a deep massage,” Matthew says. The result is immediate. “You can measure the change in the atlas bone’s position before and after.”

Until the atlas method is validated by independent scientific research, Matthew realises that, however many testimonials pile up, he will continue to face a wall of doubt.

“You can understand why people should be sceptical,” he says. They are going to ask ‘why hasn’t it been done before’. But the fact is that modern science doesn’t know it all. There is still plenty to be discovered – or rediscovered.