Dr. Jerome Fryer Chiropractor

09/05/2025

Cartilage is the slowest-healing tissue in the body. Snail's pace but solid. Don't rush it. Be steady and patient. My little tip of the day.

08/24/2025

Always a thrill to see our paper cited in such a high-impact journal. To the full-time researchers, this may be another day in the office, but as a part-timer, it is worth the effort.

Pain perception, trunk mobility and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) within all lumbar intervertebral discs (IVDs) were collected before and shortly after posterior-to-anterior (PA) mobilizations in 16 adults with acute low back pain. Using a pragmatic approach, a trained orthopaedic manual phys...

08/21/2025

What happens when you sit down with one of the most respected spine experts in the world — and a man who quite literally helped rebuild...

08/21/2025

Thank you for the mention. If you want to see someone else, rather than me, talking the science of stability, check in the comments for the link. Backfitpro Inc. and Stuart McGill, PhD with Brian Caroll

08/20/2025

This is common in lower backs, when the discs lose their integrity for stability. Check out the Dynawell Device to mimic gravity with the MRI testing.

Loading MRI shows disc deformation patterns that may serve as biomarkers for nonspecific low back pain, offering new clinical insights.

08/20/2025

💡 Why Do Neck Problems Trigger Headaches?

Many of my patients are surprised to learn that their neck pain and headaches are connected by the same nerve center in the brainstem. This area is called the trigemino-cervical complex (TCC).

👉 The TCC is where the nerves from your upper neck (C1–C3) and your trigeminal nerve (the main sensory nerve of the face and head) meet. Because these nerves converge in the same place, pain from the neck can be “felt” in the head — and pain from the head can be “felt” in the neck.

This helps explain why:

Neck stiffness or trapezius muscle tension often shows up with migraines and tension-type headaches.

Addressing neck function can reduce headache frequency and intensity.

Manual therapy and exercise that calms down this pain “hub” may play a big role in care.

📖 I like to start my mornings staying informed by reading the latest research. A recent study used advanced MRI to show changes in the trapezius muscle linked with headache frequency and neck pain — providing objective evidence of what many of us see in practice every day.

🔗 Reference:
Christensen CE, Gouveia-Figueira S, Amin FM, et al. Trapezius T2 values are associated with tension-type headache, neck pain, and headache frequency: an MRI study using T2 mapping in young adults. J Headache Pain. 2023;24(1):96. https://doi.org/10.1186/s10194-023-01626-w

🔑 Takeaway: If you suffer from headaches and notice neck tension, the two are likely linked. Addressing the neck can be a key step in breaking the cycle of headaches.

— Dr. Jerome Fryer, Chiropractor

Background Tension-type headache (TTH) is the most prevalent primary headache disorder. Neck pain is commonly associated with primary headaches and the trigemino-cervical complex (TCC) refers to the convergence of trigeminal and cervical afferents onto neurons of the brainstem, thus conceptualizes t...

08/17/2025

Innervation of the lumbar intervertebral disc 💡

▶️ The lumbar intervertebral disc (IVD) has a distinct pattern of innervation. The nucleus pulposus (NP) and the innermost part of the annulus fibrosus (AF) are not innervated. In contrast, the outermost third of the AF contains sensory mechanoreceptors supplied by afferent fibers that travel via sympathetic pathways. The cell bodies of these afferent neurons are located mainly in the dorsal root ganglia (DRGs) between C8 and L2—spinal levels where sympathetic nerve fibers exit the spinal cord (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40717265/).

👉 Afferent fibers from different parts of the IVD follow separate courses.

⬆️Fibers from the ventral portion of the disc form a network with fibers from the anterior longitudinal ligament (ligamentum longitudinale anterius, LLA), join the sympathetic trunk, and travel along the rami communicantes before reaching the DRGs. Rami communicantes are nerve branches that connect the spinal nerves to the sympathetic trunk, a part of the autonomic nervous system.

⬇️In contrast, fibers from the dorsal portion of the disc connect with fibers from the posterior longitudinal ligament (ligamentum longitudinale posterius, LLP), vertebral body structures, and ventral dura mater, traveling instead via the sinuvertebral nerves and posterior rami communicantes (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17905946/).

💡 Both the anterior and posterior longitudinal ligaments contain numerous transverse interconnections, producing a dense sinuvertebral plexus with branches running horizontally, cranially, and caudally at each vertebral level. This extensive network of anastomoses explains why disc-related pain can be perceived on the contralateral side or even at a spinal level different from the primary pathology (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3407473/, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2371968/).

🔎 Clinically, this sympathetic-mediated innervation has been linked to lumbar discogenic pain. Some studies suggest that diagnostic or therapeutic interventions—such as blocking or stimulating the L2 spinal nerve or performing ramus communicans denervation—may relieve pain. However, while one randomized controlled trial reported clinical benefit from such denervation in single-level discogenic pain (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14668658/), another sham-controlled trial found no effect (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27734550/), leaving the role of sympathetic nociceptive innervation in lumbar disc pain under debate.

📷 Illustration: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40717265

08/12/2025

Pushing forward with evidence. It's really cool; physical chemistry explained simply by William E. Morgan, DC. Thanks for mentioning the science we conducted.

Ever wonder why your knuckles crack or your joints pop? 💥 Learn the real science behind the sound—tribonucleation—as we break down joint mechanics, gas bubb...

08/11/2025

Common symptoms from the neck, not the shoulder.

08/06/2025

Super fun with this one Sunfest Country and Funkanometry.

Wanna get in contact for bookings, live performances and promo...

08/04/2025

Well, that was fun. :)

Hey ❤️FunkFam members…yay! Look who was at SunFest ‘ 25, it’s Funkanometry awesome camera dad, ! That means footage is coming!!

08/04/2025

Important discussion.

Eric Verdin is a physician-scientist & the CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. In this episode, Eric traces his scientific journey from studying...