I’ve got a dicey upper back. For one thing, I live at a keyboard. I have upper shoulder muscles that rival any male weightlifter. And I have a neck with problems.
I don’t like traction much: last time I had it was years ago, and it’s changed very much for the better.
About 30 years ago, a prankster in a car took a dive at me on a downhill bike run; and the city had installed a storm drain grating in the wrong direction. I dodged the idiot with the car and the attitude, but in the dodge, I found myself facing that storm drain. I was almost good enough to ride one crossbar of that trap clear across, but on the second half of it, my front wheel dropped into the storm drain up to the axle. Flipped me into a potential faceplant on pavement…or a broken neck. I was younger, athletic, and managed not to flip or hit my face—I karate-chopped the oncoming pavement with both forearms, and managed to drive myself forward with roadrash on my throat, but I didn’t, thank God, flip and break my neck. Did the jerk stop? No. He kept going.
I’ve suffered lifelong from the effects of that one. And over the years my upper back has just gotten stiffer and stiffer—muscles in near-permanent contraction, stiff, and really mind-bendingly sore, and now I’ve got a left arm stiffening up: it’s been years since I’ve been able to turn my head to the left.
Well, I finally got desperate enough to ask Dr. Shane if in addition to the impactor therapy he’s using on the arm, I could try neck traction and see if it could get any relaxation in my shoulders.
Amazing how non-event the traction feels when you haven’t got any feeling of motion in your shoulders. But 10 minutes of it, and I could begin to feel something going on. Like maybe there was increased circulation. Heat. That’s all I got—first session and the doc’s being cautious. But it freed up my back for maybe the first time it’s relaxed this much in 20 years. It feels hot. It gave me a bit of a headache. I iced it all night. It’s painful. But it’s a minor, good kind of pain, that you get from a situation relieved, not exacerbated. And the sensation of relaxation is interesting. It’s not quite relaxed. But it’s no longer locked. This has possibilities.
migod, that sounds terrible, glad you can feel some relief from the treatment.
I’ve also suffered from neck problems for many years. A few years back when I first started treating it, an experienced chiropractor and acupuncturist both said they’d never seen anything like it in many years of practice. Some muscles on one side of my neck were frozen up solid like a block of wood.
A couple of acupuncture treatments at the start made a big difference. Initially the muscles in my neck were so hard that the acupuncturist could hardly get a needle in, and when he tried to pull it out it was difficult to pull out. But by the second treatment there was a very noticeable difference. He then sent me back to the chiropractor, and it gradually started improving.
It’s continued to improve steadily, and I’ve also had good very results with an osteopath. The osteopathic approach is different from chiropractic. It’s a lot more gentle, but it does seem to have more profound and lasting effects.
There is a reputable home traction unit that I am going to be looking at. My chiropractor said it works, works well, and is safe (especially if you get the recommended settings from somebody who knows what’s what, as for instance my setting is 30 lbs for starters) and the idea of relief when you want it is real attractive. He says do NOT get the one in which you stand up and use the top of a door as a base. No-no-no-no-no. There are way too many bad things that could happen, as, say, your Rottweiler decides a partially open door is like, open.
I am with you on the neck and shoulder trouble. I started going to a massage therapist and the relief is incredible. It took a few appointments, going about twice a week and then I chose to go about once a month to try to help prevent such a horrible pain again. She also showed me some very effective exercises to do which helped. I think she saved my life! Find a reputable massage therapist and try. I wish I could bring you here to her or send her there to you. (I’m not going now because of the cost, but I can tell I’ll be sorry.)
Oh yeah. Living at the computer — I really understand that problem! Just spent days and days getting my newest book formatted and released besides all the other usual work. Neck and upper back problems. Should we call it Writer Syndrome?
Russ is coming home tomorrow night! First trip back in three months, and if things go the way they have the last two years, he won’t be back again until at least March or April. We have ten days in which to do far too many things (besides he has classes to teach on a few of those days.) The big question is going to be about the furnace. I had a water pipe break right over it and didn’t realize for a while. Not sure if it’s going to have recovered or not. Sigh.
But still — Russ is going to be home! He gets to meet little fluffy Buffy bear for the first time. Oh and adorable Buffy picture to share:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zettepics/6166931377/
Is that cute or what?
OMG that is cute!
Thank you!
It would have been better if she was actually sitting still, but it was the best picture I could get and then Photoshopped it. I think it’s adorable myself. I seriously doubt she’ll ever put up with that again, though. (grin)
Tres cute!
Enjoy the time with Russ!
After a lifetime programming computers my neck and shoulders can be a problem as well. A few years ago it used to be common to have nagging low level pain. It mostly went away after I changed chairs and switched to a Tempur contoured pillow in bed. It didn’t go away completely though as I found out earlier this week. I woke up with a little pain and stiffness all along the top of my shoulder blades and down my upper spine. It wasn’t too bad though so I shrugged it off (which hurt a bit 🙂 ). I’d booked the afternoon off work to play golf and at the time it didn’t seem to be an issue.
The next morning was nasty. Definite pain now and also a burning sensation – almost as if the muscles were raw inside. So I spent the day mainlining Ibuproven and occasionally applying Voltarol Gel(*). Mind you that’s not easy – have you ever tried rubbing gel into your shoulders when your shoulders are painful?
Anyway the next day (yesterday) it had almost completely gone. Curiously so had the nagging hip discomfort I’d been living with for a couple of months. It’s not the first time that a day of heavy NSAID use has cured me of general aches and pains. I’m considering going to my Dr to see if there’s any significance to that. Masking pain for a few hours is one thing but actually curing it seems odd.
(*)You know you’re getting older when Ibuprofen isn’t enough and you move onto Diclofenac 🙂
I do hope you find a treatment that will work for you.I have four fusions lower back and a crushed nerve bundle.No treatment has been able to help.I am forced to take morphine which does help but is not what I had hoped for.I will keep you and Jane in my prayers.
the cessation of discomfort is so… soothing. have many of those Tshirts. glad feeling better.
you might ask your chiro, or check into a bowenwork session. Bowen is gentle, works via the CNS, to help de-inform the body of old injuries and stress.. so that it can kick into its own healing mode. non-invasive and low-to-no risk.
if you have some range of motion, a pilates trainer showed me an exercise that has saved my neck/shoulders back, many times.
i started w/ doorway stretches to open up the front muscles. stand in doorway, hands on the sides, gently step through. breathe.
anyway- hold something lightly behind your back, like a small towel. without gripping it, loose wrists and elbows, lift upward as far as comfortable, extend out behind you, then lower back down. This exercise strengthens the muscles scapular area/ shoulder blades etc that HOLD the body in a better posture and relieve the pressure on neck, shoulders etc. note, to try looking ahead, and not down at ground when doing this, makes a difference. only do 5-10 reps 2-3x/day;) you can build more over time.
washington area bowen practitioner list- you actually have a ton of them. several are probably also LCMTs or chiro’s:)
http://www.bowenwork.com/WebsiteProj/Pages/Practitioner/Search.aspx
THank you. My chiro guy is really up on all sorts of odd techniques: I think he collects them. One of the oddest is the Torquemada device: a board with a lot of straps: you stand against it, and the straps tightness forces you flatter and flatter. He says it re-informs the micro-muscles along the spine about what sequence of firing they’re supposed to observe. It’s weird. There’s no crunch, just extreme restriction, and you emerge more flexible. He’s got other things that are little punch devices that deliver a gentle thump, and a few of these and a reluctant joint starts working….The traction, as applied, was extremely gentle and quite limited in time; and today my upper back actually has circulation. We just walked about a mile and a half to Pancakes R Us (Waffles Plus) and back again. Corned beef hash. Yum. And the return is uphill most of the way and very sharply so at the last. I did it. Drenched in sweat, but I did it.
I’m 6’2″, been having lower-back/hip trouble for 6mos. (MRI next week.) But one thing I’ve noticed is the common office chair’s lumbar support hits me too low, more like at the upper sacrum, forcing my butt away from the back of the chair and even less lumbar support than a straight-back chair would give. I went hunting and found the Raynor “Wau” chair that has an adjustable back, both height and lumbar push. Feels better. Something like $900 list, but I found it for $385. (It’d better last!) Just FYI.
yeah- bowenwork originally from australia. slowly making its way up here. I’ve seen it do some pretty powerful stuff. nutshell: it works with the spindle cells and the golgi tendon reflex. when doc tests your reflexes, he isn’t hitting a muscle, he is sending a message in through the nerve, to the spindle cell, telling it to fire. Bowen works on same premise. but its gently telling the spindle cell to fire and not fire at the same time. in that moment of confusion, it shuts off for a split second. When it turns back on, it reboots from master-copy information. This resets muscles to “optimal resting length.” So if muscles have experienced stress, tension or have old-injury memory, this releases that, and the tissues can rehydrate, communicate and go into healing mode. When the body is in stress mode, at the CNS level, it does not heal ( ditto re burning calories, thinking, creativity etc- something about the cellular level staying prepared for fight or flight so as not to become some lions tastey snack. go figure;)..
but anyway- Tom Bowen, studied with chiro’s and other holistic practitioners and ultimately began to intuit some underlying mechanism regarding the body’s own healing process. The practitioner is not affecting the healing- it is bringing the body, at the cellular level, out of stress mode, so that the body will then do its own work. The body knows better and is more effective than anyone external. The summation is somewhat like- shaking the etcher-sketch, getting rid of what is no longer needed, so that the body can bring its attention to what does require work:)
very subtle, non-invasive but quite potent in a sneaky sort of way:) relaxing too!
My profession being another one for sitting at a desk and typing all day, blood clots in the leg veins are an occupational hazard — After hearing of the tragic death of a colleague from a blood clot in her legs that broke loose and went to her lungs — while she was sitting at her desk typing! — I made some changes in my setup. I now type from a recliner –I’ve gotten a desk that is tall enough for the recliner to fit under. I have casters on my recliner and roll it under the desk, but it works the other way, too. The recliner back is high enough to support my head completely, so no more neck and shoulder problems. My legs are almost straight, so no more puffy ankles at the end of the day. My arms are almost straight so no more elbow problems. And sitting up to reach for things on my desk has done wonders for my abdomen.