(From the September 2008 “G”Note)

During the February 2008 chiropractic mission to Guatemala, a 28-year-old male presented for care. He complained primarily of lower back pain in the lumbar spine and pelvis with extension into the thighs. In 1994, he was run over by the back wheels of a bus. The wheels ran over his pelvis, and he was pretty much left for dead. His father knew a Guatemalan orthopedic surgeon in Boston, Massachusetts and sent his son there. A considerable amount of work was done to fuse together the pieces of his pelvis.

He is now fully ambulatory. He is tall and quite thin. He brought in AP and lateral full spine x-rays that were taken in Chile in 2004, as well as, the 1994 initial films.

After searching around for the correct subluxation, what really helped him was L4 adjustments. The standard push move set-up was painful. I carefully flexed both legs in the side posture position, pushed L4 P-A considerably to take out the slack, and adjusted it with a pisiform contact. I used that same adjustment with an elderly Guatemalan woman with severe osteoporosis.

Jigsaw puzzle pelvis_09_08

I didn’t think to photograph the original post-accident films – they were scary to look at! As you might imagine after looking at the above film, the ilia and sacrum were in pieces in the first films. This post film was taken in 2004, 10 years post-accident. Note the bar of bone across the upper aspect of his sacrum that joins the ilia. It palpates like it looks.

 

The x-ray was photographed in front of a window that was covered with black plastic. Not quite viewbox quality. The lateral copy that I made, which was the lateral full spine film, was too dark. L4 and L5 appeared posterior with lumbar hypolordosis.