Anhydrous Wit

Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

Monday, January 28, 2008

Nothing to Sneeze At

After my last post and before my doctor's appointment on Friday, I discovered that I could not sneeze. I just inhaled, my back seized up, and suddenly I didn't need to sneeze any more. Again, it's amazing how much your back muscles get involved in.

I went to a chiropractic office in my old bank. (The doctor's office actually is in the vault.) He x-rayed me and gave me a preliminary diagnosis that my vertebrae are compressed, so there is less motion in my spine, so the muscles have to work harder (or the muscles move but the spine doesn't; I was a bit confused there), hence I strained a muscle.

His staff gave me a minor massage of the lower back, gave me an ultrasound treatment (I didn't ask if it's a boy or girl; I want to be surprised), and then sent electric pulses into my lower back for ten minutes. On the uninjured side, I could feel the pulses moving in a varying pattern. On the injured side, it felt as if someone was poking a bruise.

Next, I went back to the doctor to be "adjusted". (A show of hands: how many of you have known for years that I'm not well-adjusted?) I lay on my stomach, and he said he was going to give me a "little" push in the upper back. He said "good" afterward, but I was pondering how he didn't crack my ribs against the table. He did the same to my middle & lower back, and I was thinking how nice it was that he shoved so quickly. I then lay on my right side, feeling a little pain, and he adjusted my arms and legs into a Vesuvian death pose before pushing on my spine from the side. "This guy means business," I was thinking. Then came the hard part: my left (strained) side. My pain level was a constant 4 or 5 (10 being the highest) -- until he pushed. My pain jumped to an 8 (not high enough to cry out nor bring tears to my eyes), and I figured the guy was a masochist. Then I made a follow-up appointment for this afternoon.

It took until mid-day Saturday, but the muscle treatment appears to have worked. I could bend or take deep breaths or, yes, sneeze without pain. I figure loosening my vertebrae might take some more sessions, though.

1 Comments:

At 9:19 AM, January 28, 2008 , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yes. Your muscles will be sore for a couple of days as they are re-learning their purpose. It goes away. However. The other muscles are still stronger and will tend to yank your spine back out. Thus you might need a couple of treatments each week for a few weeks. Then the muscles that were being lazy will have regained their strength and be able to play nice with the others.

To help your low back, work your abs. See? It is all about symmetry.

Darn slacker muscles!!

Darn flabby abs! Get back behind that belt, you!!

 

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