My story is a long one involving 30 years of right-sided pain from head to toe, visits to countless health care providers of all sorts, multiple right-sided surgeries to repair unusual cartilage and tendon tears, and a huge monetary output.  I lived as well as I knew how to live: regularly stretched and worked out as much as my body would allow, had regular massage therapy, ate a healthy diet, stayed well-hydrated, and made sufficient sleep a priority.  However, by the fall of 2013 it was taking me an hour and a half to get out of bed in the morning, numbness and tingling that once affected only my right arm and leg had spread to my left side, breathing was becoming a chore, almost every joint in my body ached to some degree, and I experienced unsettling dizziness dozens of times a day. A decade before, one of the many healthcare providers I saw diagnosed me with trigger points (tension knots) in my right shoulder—the first diagnosis that made sense.  Feeling to my core that these trigger points were the key, I desperately searched the Internet for “trigger point therapy Greenville North Carolina.” I got no hits for practices in Greenville, but I did get one for Triangle Trigger Point Therapy in Raleigh.  I read about Terrie Bellairs and the work she does, and, though I knew it would involve a great deal of time, money, and travel, I had to investigate.  It was the best decision I ever made. In the very first appointment, Terrie told me I was doing everything right and yet I still had chronic severe issues.  She went on to say that in her experience situations like this were usually the result of leg length discrepancies, whether anatomical (from birth) or functional (due to skeletal misalignment).  She had my legs measured and we found that I had unknowingly suffered from both during my life.  I was born with my right leg .28 inches shorter than the left (a quarter of an inch is all it takes!), which resulted in my body compacting the bones of my left side in order to achieve balance with the right.  A severe knee cartilage tear in my mid-40s led to surgeons at Duke adding the missing .28 inches to the right leg (though I was never told that’s what they did), but my left side was incapable of undoing the skeletal compaction that had been in place for so many years.  Hence, my worsening and more widespread symptoms in the seven years following that surgery. Terrie directed me to Dr. John Boccella at Atlas Chiropractic to address my functional leg length problem. I was at first ambivalent because my past experiences with chiropractors had not been good.  Terrie assured me that atlas orthogonal chiropractic was the opposite of what I had experienced in the past so I trusted her.  It was the next best decision I ever made.  In the four months since, Dr. Boccella has gently convinced my skeletal system to accept new patterns while Teri Bellairs has gently convinced my ingrained muscle trigger points to let go.  Given the chronic nature of my symptoms, my body’s response has been amazingly rapid, and I believe this is due to the fact that both the skeleton and the muscles are being attended to simultaneously by the Bellairs/Boccella team.  Things are not perfect yet, but they are far better than they were.  And I have no reason to believe they couldn’t be at least nearly perfect at some point because I continue to notice improvements every day. I can’t close my testimonial without adding compliments of the highest order to every member of the Triangle Trigger Point Therapy and Atlas Chiropractic teams.  From my first calls to Karen at Triangle Trigger Point and Kristy at Atlas, to Gwen’s careful diagnostic exams and assistance to Dr. John, I know I have been in good hands.  My heartfelt thanks to you all.  You have changed my life!

I initially came to TTPT six months after having lower lumbar back surgery.  I had completed my physical therapy but still had pain in my left leg and buttock area and it was suggested to me that I see a massage therapist for neuromuscular therapy. TTPT has helped me recover 100% from my residual pain with the neuromuscular massage therapy and the stretching exercises that I was given to do at home.