When the stress of the day gets me down and I feel the weight of the world settling into my bones, I hang upside down. Really.
Like this; a few months ago my lower back would hurt after I’d been lying down for several hours. The upshot of that would be that after sleeping for a period of time, pain would start to build. I theorized several things: my stomach muscles were not as strong as my back, and when I relaxed my spine bowed backwards; my back muscles were not as strong as my stomach; my work chair was brutal to my posture; my exercise was insufficiently mobility-centric; it was too much so. And so on. I experimented carefully to test each theory, and every experiment was a success; I disproved every hypothesis I came up with.
My sleep was down to 90 minute bursts when I took Shannon’s suggestion and went to a chiropractor. Having someone crack my bones seemed…superstitious. Why would that help? After running (carefully) and yoga and general good habits, I should be stretched and toned and relaxed and shaken into place. Pain, lack of sleep, and trust in the redhead’s opinions led me, in any case, to get ‘em cracked.
It worked. Well, good. I don’t have to understand things to note that they work. I went, at the usual ruinous expense for things that are doing one good, until I couldn’t afford the visits.
The thing is, I wasn’t getting better. I was just relieving the symptoms. Not a useful long-range solution by my lights. Further, my chiro felt me up, gave me a gross observation, and determined to crack me. No X-rays, no clever equipment, no careful study, no sacrificing a goat, staring into a pool of water, or spreading his enemy’s entrails over the Liglamenti Times. Just a blind decision that crackin’ me was a good idea.
I found another chiro when I could afford to, one who actually applied some sort of thought rather than blind faith. He X-rayed me, ran me through a series of postures and exercises while he watched and probed with hands and diagnostic equipment. He measured and considered.
Then he cracked my bones, just as the other fellow had done. He was significantly less successful; my symptoms weren’t relieved at all.
HOWEVER.
The X-rays were wonderfully useful. They showed a wonderfully healthy spine, with an exception right above my pelvis, where I had a pad that was half the width of any of the others. My self-care is probably the only reason it hasn’t spurted out one direction or another. Compressed disk. Fine. Treatment for that?
Crack yer bones!
Uhm. And that helps, exactly, how?
The new chiro ran down some other alternatives, which included traction. Basically, anything that relieves the pressure in the area will permit tissue recovery to some degree, and I will experience relief. His feeling is that crackin’ my bones will do that, although he allows that there are other things. In fact, he said that if everyone practices yoga and uses gravity boots or traction, he wouldn’t have a job.
Well, all right, then. I acquired a pair of gravity boots on ebay.
Boom. Immediate relief. Progressively better sleep this week. Dandy.
Unfortunately, I sort of over-did yesterday, and I’m feeling very over-used today. Very like the feeling one gets from too much vigor at the gym. I’ll be taking a day or two off from hanging like a bat.
So. There you are. No punch line commends itself to this, so we’ll just have to accept that some things are merely reported, rather than related engagingly with a zing at the end that drives the entire thing home and makes it a part of the reader’s soul forever. Sad, but there it is.
Crossposted from Epinepherine & Sophistry