The patient was in a car accident and presented with the following problems:  neck pain, headaches, low back pain, and unilateral hip pain on the left. Within four weeks all of her symptoms had subsided except the hip pain. From my experience it didn't make sense that the low back pain subsided and the hip pain was still constant.  Based on that line of thinking I referred her to a hip specialist for an evaluation.  I have worked extensively with this physician and respect his expertise. After an MRI and exam he told the patient she needed a hip replacement. She came back in my office for a follow-up visit and shared the news.  I checked her spine with the pulstar fras unit (see video on the home page) and the graph was clear. Here is where experience is so valuable, and why I always say you have to be able to think outside the box when it comes to treating pain. I decided to check her atlas. This is the first bone in the spinal column located at the top of the neck and also is known as C1. On the pulstar atlas was clear meaning it didn't register that an adjustment was needed. However there are many ways of analyzing the spine. I utilized a technique that I learned at least fifteen years ago by a doctor in California specifically for the atlas. This analysis told me she needed an adjustment on the left side of C1. I performed this adjustment and the patient got off the treatment table without hip pain. That was two weeks ago and she is still pain free.  If I have said this once I've said it ten thousand times. You cannot just look in the area of pain for the reason the patient hurts. In the vast majority of cases I treat, where the patient is experiencing pain and where you find the source of that pain are in two different places.