"Brokeback" mountain

I wrote in my last post about my back giving me grief, so I thought I’d explain a little bit.
I’ve had issues with it for the past few years, and was going to the chiropractor regularly about 2 years ago. But I started to feel better, and I didn’t really like him all that much, so I just kind of stopped going.

Little did I know that was not such a good idea on my part. My back started to hurt again, my arm would sometimes get all tingly after a long day of sitting in front of the computer…needless to say, it was not very comfortable at all.

So a new chiropractic office opened up in my building, and I thought “I get coverage through my work benefits, why not check it out, see if he can help me out a little bit?”

So I think it was mid-November I made an appointment, went in, and met the man who has become my savior. Now I know that a lot of people scoff at the whole chiropractic medicine thing, but Dr. Corey has done nothing but enlighten me on the mangled mess that is my back. He made me go for x-rays the same day of my first visit, before he would start to adjust me. He showed me my x-rays and explained what exactly is wrong with me – I have scoliosis, a curvature of the spine that can cause huge problems in later years if not treated. My neck is another story…2 of my vertebrae are twisted around the spinal cord…that is not normal.

The weird thing is that for something like that to happen, it normally takes some kind of great force ie. being dropped as a child, being in a major car accident at a young age before my bones started to harden and fuse. But nope, none of that happened to me. I even grilled my mom, telling her it was OK to let me know if she had been abusive let me fall on my head dropped me as a child knew anything. But she swears that nothing of the sort ever took place.


So I guess I’m just an anomaly…a freak of nature…a case for the chiropractic textbooks. I guess there could be worse things.

Anyways…my back has slowly become more mobile in the past 2 months…I’ve been able to sleep with almost no pain whatsoever, and my posture is even improving (although, I must admit, learning how to sit up straight after 27 years of slouching is a BITCH).

Then, late last week, I woke up, (on my day off, no less) to find that I could not move my neck. My lower back was in spasm. And I hadn’t done anything to warrant this pain!! I suffered through the weekend as I am an idiot…but I didn’t want to go and see anyone else when Dr. Corey knows what’s been going on. I imagined another chiropractor doing crazy traction techniques and screwing me up even more.

So I sucked it up…I literally spent all day Friday and Saturday on my back. Which, under normal circumstances could have been a lot of fun ;O) , but I digress…

The man brought up the futon mattress from the basement and set me up on the living room floor…armed with half a dozen rentals from Blockbuster and some candy to make me feel better, I rested. And I hated it. I had big plans for my day off. And they did not involved falling in and out of a Robaxacet-induced sleep.

To make a long story short, I felt marginally better on Sunday, and come Monday morning the first call I made was to the chiro to set up an appointment. They got me in right away, and when I laid down and Dr. Corey checked me out, the first thing out of his mouth was “Wow.” Not really something that you want to hear from any type of doctor. After about 20 minutes of adjustments and stretching, he told me that he could net get me neck muscles to come out of spasm, and that I should come back again that afternoon. Two visits in one day. Wicked.

In the afternoon I hobbled back, with the man in tow so that he could learn some of the stretches that I cannot do to myself. A minute or two of trying to pull my head off of my torso, and then all of a sudden a good “Crack!” and I could move my neck again. It was better than I could have imagined. I hadn’t realized how much I had been tensing the rest of my body to keep my neck from moving…I felt all tension drain from my body, and I was almost in tears because I was no longer in pain.

When I asked what caused it, he told me that it was most likely due to the horrible cough that I’ve had lately. The force of my coughing has brought me to the brink of being physically ill (aka puking) on more than one occasion…it knocks the wind right out of me and constricts my chest til I feel like I am going to pass out. Fun times all around, no?

So, armed with cough syrup and lozenges, I can move again, my back feels 100 times better, and this cold is finally starting to take a hike…let’s just hope I don’t have to pay another visit to “Brokeback” mountain again any time soon.