Jorey’s Journey

When I saw Jorey for the first time, I wanted to know everything about this sweet little 5-month-old. I learned that he was born via a scheduled C-section. His mother, Deon, explained that for the past five days Jorey had been having 8 to 12 seizures a day. Deon had already brought Jorey to the ER; the hospital conducted an EEG and a CT scan and found out that his brain-wave activity was nowhere near normal. (During the study he had nine seizures!) The neurologist prescribed corticotropin gel injections, an anti-seizure medication for “infantile spasms,” and told Deon that Jorey would need to return in two weeks to retest. That was all they had.

Jorey was mid-seizure when he and his mom arrived at our office, and his cries were some of the most painful that I had ever heard. During his seizures he would hold his arms above his head and his eyes would roll back. Afterward he would cry again.

Upon examination of this little man I found he had cranial malformations and his cranial symmetry was off. His body had almost zero primitive reflexes and an exaggerated Moro’s reflex. He had no acoustic blink, he would only root to one side, and his suckle reflex was completely absent. This was not good! I found cranial bone subluxations of the right lamboid suture, the left parietal, and the frontal and sphenoid bones. His latch was very shallow and his right TMJ was not moving well. When we inverted him, it showed that the occiput was anterior and the atlas had gone posterior. He also showed a tremendous amount of dural tension. After the examination, Jorey had another seizure while in Deon’s arms.

I followed what his body was telling me and got to work. His brain was overloaded and bombarded by signals from the malfunctioning receptors in his spine. This overran the brain and changed its neural firing, resulting in seizures. Generally, this is a result of the traction and pull to an infant’s delicate spine during a C-section.

We adjusted the sacrum first with Logan Basic. I knew that we needed to have a huge impact on the spine with as little mechanical force as possible to get Jorey’s brain back into full communication with his body. Once the communication was restored, he could finally start to heal himself. I knew that he could have another seizure at any moment but we continued to move up to his atlas and occiput, where the main part of the nerve interference was happening. We first adjusted Jorey’s atlas with the infant toggle headpiece and rechecked with inversion, post adjustment; he was clear with no head rotation but some slight extension of his head. The dural tension was still prevalent. Jorey then started to get upset and cry, so Deon put him to her breast. I continued with cranial work while he was breastfeeding and released the dural tension. Deon felt Jorey’s latch change as the dural tension subsided and his TMJ started working. She could not believe the instant change! We finished up and they stayed in the office until he was done feeding.

For the next 12 hours after his first adjustment, Jorey did not have a single seizure. The next day we adjusted him again and his seizure activity decreased even more. We saw him Monday through Friday every morning to continue to change the embedded neurological patterns. He became seizure-free during the daytime.

That Thursday, I went to his home and took care of him before his EEG appointment the next morning.

The EEG showed that Jorey’s brain-wave activity had returned to normal. Over the course of that day Jorey had not a single spasm. This was amazing!

Deon was elated. She brought the scans into the office Friday afternoon and gave me a huge high five: “You got his brain back to working, Dr. Skip!” I told her that I removed the interference, but that it was his body’s wisdom healing itself. You see, the most vital thing a chiropractor can do is to detect and remove the vertebral subluxations that are interfering with the body’s intelligence and its ability to heal and self-regulate.

May 26, two days after his first EEG scan, Jorey began chiropractic care. In nine days the occurrence of his seizures dropped sixfold, from 12 seizures a day down to two. It only took a short while before that number dropped to zero. By the time of his final EEG appointment on July 29, Jorey was completely clear of all seizures. In fact, the pediatric neurologist here in Green Bay, Dr. Edgar, dubbed him “the miracle baby” due to the fact that he has never seen a child fully recover from infantile spasms and be completely seizure-free without medication. Jorey has continued to be seizure-free ever since, and his entire family is now under chiropractic care. The entire journey with this little tiger has been an amazing one.

Mom’s Story

My 5-month-old son was diagnosed with infantile spasms, which is a rare form of epilepsy in infants. It usually begins at about 4 months of age up to 2 years, and eventually turns into another form of epilepsy. They call infantile spasms a “little seizure with big consequences.” We started noticing Jorey’s small seizure activity one evening and called the paramedics. He was taken to the hospital and later sent home. The emergency room doctor said that we were probably just misreading his body language and it may just be his reflexes. In my heart I knew something was not right with my baby.

The next day, when Jorey woke up he started doing it again. His eyes would get really big and he would flex his arms up and forward, stiffening his trunk and legs for a second and relaxing. He would continue to do this pattern for about 10 to 15 minutes. We rushed again to the emergency room and they admitted him. He was hooked up to an EEG and had several seizures. The neurologist came in the next day and told us that he had infantile spasms, and if we did not start treatment right away our son would be delayed mentally and physically. Every time he had a seizure it was damaging his brain. His brain was so chaotic that it was firing to absolutely nothing. During the few days in the hospital, we saw our son physically and mentally regress. He could not hold his head up. He would not engage with us or look into our eyes, and he could not control his arms.

We decided to seek care with Dr. Skip Wyss a day after returning home from the hospital. With a few adjustments, Jorey’s seizures decreased in size and frequency. Our son started holding his head up, smiling at us, cooing, laughing, sucking on his hands, and rolling over. We went back to the hospital for a follow-up EEG; the seizures have decreased and Jorey’s brain activity has improved immensely. Our son is almost completely seizure-free and a happy baby. Thank you, Dr. Skip, and thank you, chiropractic, for helping our son. I pray that his story will be shared so that parents in similar situations will seek chiropractic. —Deon Prue