darkoshi | Entries tagged with chiropractors

Two months later, and my neck is still doing that weird cracking thing every time I twist it in the right way. Fairly often during the day, I feel the need to do a quick twist of my neck to make it crack and momentarily get rid of that feeling of stiffness.

I'm getting so used to it that I've even started doing it while other people are around, at work. Today it occurred to me that I should take a video of myself doing it, to see how bad it looks/sounds. Because maybe it's something I really *don't* want to be doing around other people.

So I just took a video. Yegadz! It sounds awful! I should really go to a doctor or something. Except that I can't imagine a regular doctor being able to do anything about it. Heck, my spine has been cracky like that all my life. But when I stretch/unstiffen my back, it's good for a while. It doesn't keep on cracking like my neck can do. Maybe a chiropractor could do something to help, but the few times in the past when a chiropractor has adjusted my neck, it was scary! It makes me tense up... I'm afraid they might break my neck. So yeah no, I don't want to go to a chiropractor either.

It doesn't make sense to me, why my neck would have started doing this all of a sudden, without me having suffered any injury or trauma. If something had happened to cause it, surely I'd remember it? Unless it came from falling asleep in a bad position, maybe.

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These exercises may help:
How To STOP Your Addiction To Cracking Your Neck

Crossposts: http://darkoshi.livejournal.com/688593.html

I went to a step show this evening. My nephew was performing with his high school team. All the performances were very good. I'll post video clips of some highlights, if the videos turned out well.

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I went to a chiropractor who also does acupuncture, about my lower back pain. He took x-rays. The spacing between my vertebrae looks normal, which is very good news. I was worried that I might have a problem with my disks. He mentioned that the bones are a little kinked; not totally straight. Perhaps that is what causes me to get achy. It didn't sound like the kinkiness could be fixed though; that was quite disappointing. He did some acupuncture on me, and elecrostim.... on the first appointment I was very skeptical about the benefit of this treatment - it might soothe or numb the pain, but if it's not fixing the source of the problem, the pain will just keep coming back, so why bother? I felt like crying from disappointment during the half hour I was lying down, first with 4 needles in my back and a heat lamp shining on them, then with the elecrostim pads on me.

Nevertheless, after the treatment I went to a store, and my back didn't ache like it usually does when I'm shopping. It didn't ache for 3 days, until the weekend when I was out shopping for longer. Then it started aching quite a bit again.

A week later, on my 2nd appointment, I was feeling optimistic about the acupuncture. But this time they did the electrostim first, with a too-hot heating pad over it. There not being any easy way to get a nurse's attention while laying on my stomach with my head towards the wall, I suffered through it. It wasn't unbearable, just uncomfortable. Did I mention that I don't even like electrostim treatments? I had a bad experience with it from one of my prior chiropractors. That time, it must have been set too high, and I didn't like the sensation at all. After the electrostim and hot-pad, I got the acupuncture again; this time, the needles were connected to an elecrostim unit too. After the treatment, I went shopping again. My back started aching, so that day's treatment didn't seem to be effective - probably due to it being uncomfortable instead of soothing. But I bought a new hot-pack to use on my back once in a while, and hopefully that will help somewhat.

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I am so glad that the problem with my leg muscle went away this year, and that my legs are flexible again. I can *move* again, as evidenced by my last video posts.

My back has started feeling better. I was able to make it snap in the right spot when I woke up at night on Saturday, and since then it's been acting more like normal - me being able to twist and make it snap back in place whenever it starts feeling uncomfortable. It does seem to snap easier at night. Having the muscles be relaxed must make a difference, like the chiropractor said. I wonder if the massage could have helped with my recovery after all, even though it took a week.

Current Mood: good

I am a bit worried that my Essure implants have come out, or that something has changed with them. After getting the implants, my period changed noticeably almost from the start. No cramps, more regular, slower onset, less heavy but longer duration. It stayed that way for over 2 years. But for the last couple of months, my period has been more like it used to be, before the Essure. Although still not as bad; I haven't felt the need for Tylenol yet.

I tried finding out whether any more long-term studies have been done on Essure's effectiveness... all I can find are mention of the initial couple of studies that were done. But I did find a discussion board where several women had recently posted about various problems with their implants. I don't know if it is very uncommon to have problems, and it's just that those very few people with problems are very likely to post about them, or if the problems are more common than the initial studies suggested. Perhaps the company that makes the implants is even aware of the problems, but doesn't want them to be publicized, as then they would lose business.

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I also have other physical things bothering me. My back; the chiropractor wasn't able to get it to crack, and the massage didn't seem to help much either. My neck; I think the chiropractor helped somewhat with the stiffness, but it still doesn't feel quite right. And most of all, my right thigh. For almost 2 months now, I have not been able to cross my leg like normal. Every workday at lunch, I would go outside and cross my legs in a certain way while eating lunch, and then suddenly one day I could no longer do it. My leg hurts and complains. It's even gotten to the point where I sit differently from the outset without even thinking about it at first... I don't want that to happen. I don't want to lose my flexibility and just... stop moving, as if that's just the way things are. I don't know what to do. Should I go to a doctor? What kind of doctor? Should I wait till it's been at least 3 months? But don't even broken bones heal in just 6 weeks; why would it take 3 months for a painful/strained/sprained/whatever to heal?

I felt like crying at work this afternoon. It was all too much. All 4 of our areas had problems. The single sign-on server was down. The SQL server had been brought down (to see who would scream / to find out who was using it). The one server wasn't responding, and I only had the IP #, which was dynamic, so I couldn't even figure out which server name it was, in order to try to connect to it. The other server started having a weird problem where you could log in, but then couldn't navigate to any other pages. It just kept clocking and clocking and didn't even return a time-out error. It was awful. Maybe it was a nightmare. And of course, there was all this other work that I had actually planned to do that afternoon, but didn't get around to doing.

My back is feeling much better. I went to a chiropractor yesterday, and it did seem to help. My belief in chiropractors has been somewhat restored.

I may be getting my own place soon - if nothing untoward happens in the next few days. I've been trying not to jinx it, by not talking about it much.

My computer's been having start-up issues lately. It often reboots itself while loading Windows. I must research this.

I spoke briefly on the phone with my brother's old friend from high school. He is vegan too. I can't think of anyone else whom I've known in person, who is vegan. Oh. I guess my German aunt's former neighbor is too, based on some of the newsletters he forwards to Forestfen. So that is 2 vegans I know of. Out of all the people I have ever met. Sigh. Or maybe there have been more, and my memory is just bad.

My bangs are long enough that they bother me. I haven't decided whether to grow them out or cut them off... which might result in me cutting the rest of the hair on the top of my head short again, too. For now, I am keeping them out of my face with hairpins. I don't like the look of the hairpins in my hair, though. Perhaps I will find some other style that I like better. But I doubt there are any that are much better. Long hair is feminine-looking enough, and hairpins make it even worse.

My back is killing me. Not as in writhing on the floor in intense agony, but as in a constant distracting low-level pain emanating from a specific spot. All I did was wake up this morning, move slightly, and snap, something moved badly, and now this.

And my leg muscle hasn't even gotten better yet either, since last year.

And I don't believe in chiropractors anymore. Forestfen even said that even though the cause of the pain may have happened in an instant, from her experience, it is normal for these kinds of things to take weeks to get better. Even though my mind thinks, if I just contort my body in the right way, surely it will snap back to how it's supposed to be, and not hurt anymore! So I'm constantly trying to twist and turn and... it's not helping!

If this is what it is like being in one's 30's, I can't imagine how I'm going to handle old age.

This is the 3rd time I've decided to go to a chiropractor in hopes of having a discomfort fixed. It seems that I always have high hopes when deciding to go to the chiropractor, but afterwards... I begin to feel that I get no real benefit from the sessions.

On the one hand, I do believe that a misaligned spine can cause much pain and discomfort. And I am often able to relieve my own minor discomforts by twisting and stretching my back, whereby my vertebrae *snap* back into place. (this is such a natural thing for me to do, yet I rarely see or hear anyone else doing it... but that's a different subject). It's when I'm not able to do so on my own, that I start thinking that a chiropractor could help.

But after going to the chiropractor, and having my problem area "adjusted", it really doesn't seem to have much effect (unlike when I snap my own back). The chiropractor tells me to wait a few days to see if it feels better, and if not, to come back in a week. This leaves me feeling like my ailment really isn't something that the chiropractor can fix, and that he's just doing something (the "adjustment") to make me BELIEVE that I am being helped, while hoping that my problem will heal itself in the meantime, the same as it would have done on its own.

Is it possible that simply believing that my problem was being helped, would make it heal quicker? Is my disbelief working against me?

Perhaps no medicine or treatment works, without the patient having belief in it.

The "interesting" person stopped corresponding with me with no reason given, nor even a goodbye. I guess that means he probably does smoke, or he lost interest in me for some other reason. But mainly, that he's rude.

My car still has the leak. So the leak must be coming from somewhere else, and I suppose I will need to investigate it further. I now at least have a used copy of the repair manual for my car; I had ordered it last week.

I sewed two items that needed sewing.
I did my taxes.
I cooked the fava beans which had been soaking for 2 days. I left them in the pressure cooker for an hour and a half, and they actually got nicely soft this time.

I shall make brownies.

I think I shall make an appointment with the chiropractor. Something is off with my right leg, and I haven't been able to stretch on that side without a modicum of pain for more than 3 months now. The pain comes from the muscle, but seems like it may originate in my lower spine above the tailbone. So perhaps the chiropractor can help. I had something similar several years ago, and it lasted about half a year, till I was able to stretch normally again. I'd rather it not last another 3 months this time.