Wisdom Wednesday: Treatment Before the Diagnosis?

This is an abbreviated case history to illustrate some of the unique features of the QA (Quintessential Applications) protocol.

A 34 four-year-old female came to my office with a chief complaint of severe pain under her left jaw. She had been to her primary care physician who thought it was a salivary gland but found no evidence of infection.

On palpation I could elicit pain but not from the salivary gland but actually from a small area just adjacent to a salivary gland. The area did not feel inflamed or abnormal in any sense, except she reacted to the pain.

Chiropractors are very good at palpation. It’s skill that is honed in school by palpating a hair through pages of Gray’s Anatomy. With practice, you can feel the distortion through about 80 pages of text. Now add 38 years of practice, palpating spines all day long.

So I was just as confused as her PCP. I could not identify the tissue from palpation.

Using the QA protocol, I looked for an injury reflex. However, Autogenic Facilitation was intact (any weak muscle strengthened when the nerve supply to that muscle was stimulated) eliminating an injury.

TL (therapy localization) to the jaw was active – if she placed her hand on the location of pain, any weak muscle became strong. Now I had a tool to evaluate her symptoms.

Next I checked to see what inflammatory pathway might be active. She was negative for prostaglandins but positive for both leukotrienes and cytokines. These pathways stimulate the immune system and when both are active can be autoimmune in nature. Typically, such cases will not respond favorably to ginger or boswellia, requiring a supplement that modulates the immune system.



As suspected she tested negative for ginger and boswellia. However, she also tested negative for Echinacea and Thymex (immune system modulators). Finally, she did test positive for St. John’s wort.

In the United States, St. John’s wort is typically used in the treatment of depression. However, in the rest of the world, it is better known as an herb to treat neuralgia. I use is most commonly to treat sciatica, but only when there is evidence of neuropathy (nerve damage).

In a moment of insight, I knew the diagnosis. I got out an illustrated text of the nervous system and showed her the route of the fascial nerve through the lower jaw. Then I asked her if she felt like the left side of her face was dropping. Although I couldn’t see it, she replied, “Yes, I just started feeling that today, but the pain is getting so severe, I can’t stand it.”

The diagnosis – Bell’s Palsy. To confirm, I tested the crown reflex (an indication of neuropathy) and it was positive. Then I had her taste the St. John’s wort again and stimulated the nervous system. That cleared the crown reflex and the TL to the pain in the lower jaw.

The Bottom Line:
Taking four tablets of St. John’s wort per day, her pain decreased dramatically in two days. We continued the treatment for 10 days and her symptoms resolved completely.

St. John’s wort has a healing effect of the nervous system but also has antiviral activity. The cause of Bell’s Palsy is unknown, but viral infection is the most common current theory.