Pain in the neck!

I have had scoliosis pretty much all my life. In the 6^th grade, the school had nurses check all the students and if they saw a curve, they sent you home with a note to your parents. I was one of the unlucky students who took a note home. About a year later, mom got me in to see an orthopedic and have x-rays done. The unfortunate thing is at that point it was too late to fix my curve with a brace. He said come back in a year and we will operate if it is worse. I never went back.

I have lived with this curve for the past 15 years. I have a higher pain tolerance than most because of living with back pain has kind of changed the way my brain recognizes pain. Meaning, that something that would feel painful to one person might not really register as pain to me. I have almost become desensitized to certain levels of pain to where I just think its “uncomfortable” and not “painful.” Then there are other things that cause me significant pain (lifting, standing) that wouldn’t faze the next person.

I always sit leaning to the left. I have a hip that sticks out far on the right. My rib cage is kind of awkwardly positioned (ribs hit my hip bone). I toss and turn most nights to find a comfortable position. I cannot stand for long periods of time. I have pinching, stinging, burning, tingling, aching and numbness in different areas, and ALWAYS have a lot of tension. Then, I would say twice a year it flares up on me. It’s never good when that happens because I can barely move without having sharp shooting pains which usually brings tears to my eyes. At that point I end of having to take prescription pain medicine to get me through it.

Because at 26 years old I am not interested in having back surgery, I finally paid a visit to a chiropractor. My initial consult he refused to do any adjusting until he saw X-rays. So we took some pictures of my neck and back and then scheduled for me to come back two days later. Being that I had not seen my scoliosis since age 12, I was very nervous about how it would look. I was relieved when I saw it because I was expecting it to look way worse that it did. My curve is mainly in my lower lumbar area, along with the curve, my spine/vertebrae start to kind of twist. Kind of corkscrew like but not to that extreme. I was upset but not surprised to hear that there is nothing the chiropractor can do for my curve other that try to relieve pain. I teared up and had to apologize to the Dr. I told him that I know there are so many people that have it so much worse than I do, so I am glad for that, but still gets me emotional to think that I will probably have to have back surgery one day to get it corrected.

On the X-ray of my neck, we can see that I have a “loss of cervical thordosis.” Which pretty much means, where my neck should have a backwards curve I am starting to curve forward. This is where he said he saw a problem that is fixable. One thing that concerned him is the gap between my skull and 1^st vertebra is very small. It should be a much larger gap there. This is probably part of the cause of headaches, sinus problems, and pain. He went over the cost of everything and gave me my first adjustment so I could know what it feels like and go home to decide if I want to proceed. (Because it’s not covered by my insurance and can get quite pricey.) After talking with Jonathan, I decided to go forward with the plan the Dr. has worked out for me. I will be going twice a week for the next six weeks, then once a week for the following 6 weeks. After that, twice a month for 2 months. This is the whole plan of 22 visits at $40 a visit, plus $120 of take home equipment (a decompression device, and forehead weights – I will show these once I get them) comes out to be $1,000. Which is not bad but still expensive. Then he says I can probably come once a month for maintenance. I am lucky that I am physically and mentally able to work two jobs and have the money to do something like this for my health.

My 2^nd adjustment was this morning, which I had a headache walking in. The adjustment helped slightly with my headache (I was hoping for complete relief, but I guess it’s not magic) and he got out a huge painful knot in my back another smaller one in my neck. It’s a little scary getting popped and cracked, and even a little painful just for the second or two following the crack, but doesn’t last long and feels good enough to make me want to keep going. I’ve been told that the first 2 or 3 weeks may have me a bit sore and tender, but if just wait it out and keep going it will begin to improve. Just have to make sure that I do the at home stuff, because that will be really important to how significant of results we will see on follow up x-rays. So here’s to spending a lot of time in the chiropractor’s office for the next 4 months!