…yesterday.
I tell you, a really good chiropractor is worth his weight in gold. She went down there with numb spots and serious pain and stiffness, and came back in much, much better shape, so that I feared she was going to take to shoveling and rototilling again today. Took about half an hour, various pushes, pulls, and a couple of neat tricks. One thing I like about Dr. Shane (and Dr. Mike when we were going to him) is that he’ll show the other of us how to do some of the things that aren’t risky, as a kind of continuing treatment, which prevents problems stacking up. Knowing how to realign the knee, or in this case, the hip, is really nice—especially when we live 72 miles away from his office. A lot of people are scared of chiropractors—which they ought to be, if they suspect the guy doesn’t know what he’s doing. My advice: skip the neck adjustment until you and the chiropractor are comfortable with each other. That’s the one maneuver where you really need to relax and trust the doc, and you won’t if you don’t, so skip any of that sort of treatment at first. It won’t work, anyway, if you’re not relaxed. If you can get a good one early, you can save yourself some joint problems. If you’re a harder case, you may have to go home and lie down for a few hours with ice after your first sessions, but you immediately get up without the nagging pain that sent you there in the first place.
Jane’s problem is, unless she hurts, she forgets she can hurt if she does certain things.
Glad she’s taking advantage of the non-drug option! Yay!
Putting things back into alignment is always better than taking something to dull the pain of them being out.
Now I’m headed to the doc to get a thyroid check—doing a whole lot better than last year! Tiny pill, really big improvement.
I second, third and fourth the skipping of the neck adjustment. People have been paralyzed by chiropractors doing those, it is not something to have done lightly or by someone you haven’t got 100% confidence in.
chakaal, could you link to some sources for these paralyses? When I googled it, I found quite a lot of dubious sites claiming lots of numbers, but of the more reputable sites, I found reports of just two to seven individual issues during the last 30 to 40 years. Granted it was just a quick search, but I’d be interested in any facts and research.
My family has always gone to chiropractors, but we thoroughly researched each and have only had three during the last 25 years or so. And we trust them to do neck adjustments, but of course, they’ve proven themselves to us over a long period of time, so I have to agree with the advice to skip these adjustments until you do trust the doctor.
I’ll say the best chiropractors we’ve found are the ones from Palmer College: they train in hands-on stuff rather than machines, and I think that’s the best beginning—if they are trained in hands-on, then they know how far they can do things well. The degree to which the neck should turn during one of those adjustments is measured in eighths of an inch, as I’ve seen it done, nothing in excess. One of the most dangerous things you can do is have some unlicensed friend who thinks they can help you out and does a maneuver that only someone with training and the proper equipment (plus, let me add, preliminary x-rays) should ever do. Let me count the times I’ve been at a party and some guy the size of a barn thinks this is a good way to introduce himself to ladies…run, do not walk, to the other side of the room and get your back to the wall. This for darned sure isn’t party entertainment!
Glad to hear that Jane is doing so much better…..now the hardest part!…..keeping her away from heavy work until she is better, not just feeling better! 😉
And (a la Busifer) holding my thumbs that your thyroid problems stay in check! 😀
I hurt my back when I was 16 and 8 years later they still aren’t sure where the pinch in my nerve is. I have been through all the tests and hoops that exsist except for a spinal tap thank god. Don’t let them convince her to get the cortizone (or however you spell it) it’s not worth it!
Nay, nay, nay.
No, just the realignment helps. The way Dr Shane explains it, if the tiniest muscles along the spine get out of synch and don’t fire in proper sequence you can lock up. He’s got this Torquemada device that you stand in while belts tighten, and then you need to bend, or try to, and it sort of ‘re-sets’ the sequence, like rebooting the hard drive. It really does work, weird as it sounds. It makes sure the flex starts in the right place. I’d have thought it was snake-oil, until I tried it; and you know, the way you feel you could solve your problem if you could just bend that little bit more—this machine sort of does that for you, without popping or hurting. Dunno if that would help.
Something that helps us is a velcro belt called a Si-lok belt. http://www.amazon.com/SI-LOC%C2%AE-OPTP-671-SI-LOC-Sacroiliac/dp/B000R3PTSI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1274378435&sr=8-2
comes in small/medium large/xtralarge, not too pricey. Prevents that nasty pain in the outer hip or inner leg, and lower back. It basically stabilizes the sacro-iliac joint, which is the very loose (too loose and informal) joint of the spine to the hipbone. If that gets to over-rotating during heavy work or in bad chairs that can cause you all sorts of grief. This prevents it going too far out of line as you reach and bend. Real great for yard work, when a thoughtless side reach after that pesky hand-claw can kill your back, after you’ve been shoveling or raking with ‘bad’ technique. Been there, got the teeshirt, become a believer.
Cortisone has a tendency to cause the connective tissues to break down faster. While in moderate doses (which your body makes) it is harmless, but the massive amounts that get injected into joints along with a local anesthetic to help with the pain, will lead to an earlier failure of the joint. My surgeons have all been very leery about giving me cortisone, or any other steroid in the joints, simply for that reason.
CJ, what about mild strengthening exercises with light weights. That might help firm up the mid-torso band of muscles, like Pilates does, although unless you’re cleared for any exercise, you could be doing more damage than good. If you don’t do the exercises with the proper form, you can get seriously hurt, thereby negating any beneficial results you were hoping to attain with the exercise. Which is why I emphasize light weights. More repetitions versus heavier weights and fewer, but harder, repetitions. Perhaps the chiropractor can give some good advice.