Chronic fatigue: what upper cervical research has looked at

You wake up as tired as when you went to bed. The blood work is normal, and someone has suggested it might be stress, or your age, or in your head.

How we approach fatigue and brain fog →

Illustration: a tangled blue thread that becomes one straight line

Chronic fatigue syndrome is diagnosed by ruling other things out, and people often spend years getting there. One study from NUCCA researchers has followed people with chronic fatigue syndrome for six months after an atlas correction, measuring quality of life and sleep. QSM3, the method used at our office, is a progression of NUCCA, so this work matters to us.

1 study on this page

Designs: Prospective study
Published: 2012
NUCCA lineage: marked on the NUCCA studies. QSM3, the method used at our office, is a progression of NUCCA.

Where these studies sit, by design and year

1 study, published 2012. Strongest design: cohort, pilot or before-and-after study. 1 in the NUCCA lineage, ringed.

the studies

What each study looked at

Strongest study design first. The dots show the design, from a single case (one dot) to a controlled trial (four). How to read this library

Prospective study2012NUCCANUCCA lineageNot indexed in PubMed

Nineteen people with chronic fatigue syndrome, six months after a NUCCA correction

Who and how many: 19 people diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome under the 1994 CDC criteria, fatigued for six months or more.
What was measured: Quality of life on the SF-36 health survey and sleep on the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, before a NUCCA atlas correction and after six months of monitoring to keep the atlas aligned.
What was found: The SF-36 general health score rose from 30.3 to 55.6 and the mental health score from 46.4 to 68.6, both statistically significant. The sleep quality score went from 12.1 to 6.1, where lower is better.
Limits: No control group and a single practitioner, both named by the authors. Nineteen people. A version of this study published in 2012 as a conference abstract reports different post-care scores.

Read the abstract on the journal's site → Source 1

before you draw conclusions

What this research does and doesn't tell you

One small study with no control group and one practitioner, from a journal PubMed does not index. Quality of life and sleep scores improved; that is not the same as showing the fatigue itself changed, or that it would for you. Persistent fatigue deserves a full medical workup as well.

Published research can't predict what will happen for any one person, including you. Studies report averages and single stories; your nervous system is your own. That is why The Lazar Method^™ starts with measurement, not with a promise.

We measure first, so the answer is about you, not an average.

Before any correction we measure how your nervous system is regulating your body: heart rate variability, thermal and muscle tone scans, PostureIQ™, and digital X-ray of the upper neck. QSM3, the method used at our office, is a progression of NUCCA. Dr. Jonathan Lazar, D.C., or someone personally trained by him, will go over your scans and images with you.

If we can help, we'll tell you. If we can't, we'll help you find someone who can.

Talk it through on a 15-minute Clarity Call →

This page is educational and is not medical advice. Keep the doctors who know you in the loop.

citations

Sources

Woodfield C, Dickholtz M Sr. 2012. Improvement in Quality of Life in Patients with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Following Upper Cervical Chiropractic Care: A Prospective Clinical Study Journal of Upper Cervical Chiropractic Research December 11, 2012:92-99. Not indexed in PubMed. Article page on vertebralsubluxationresearch.com

Titles are quoted exactly as published. Sources checked 2026-11-03.

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