Back Issues?

At 35 years of age I had a serious issue due to the development of scoliosis which was quite debilitating. The main cause was from many years of hard work, in which I mostly used my right hand and side; I had formed a 19% lateral curvature in my spine. This was devastating to me because my livelihood and dreams depended on my ability to do physical work. I had experience a lot of soreness at times but suddenly I found myself in extreme pain and feared my life’s ambitions might be getting out of reach.

This came to a head one day when it got really bad, and after a very restless night, I couldn’t even get out of bed in the morning. It took me 40 minutes to work myself to my feet and I went directly to the phone and called people for advice think I might have to call 911. There seemed little choice but to go to the emergency room so I took a quick and challenging shower, dressed, and made my way to my truck. On the way, a girl friend of my wife’s called me and convinced me to at least call her chiropractor, so I did. He suggested I come by and explained to me that if I went to the hospital they would most likely give me muscle relaxers and put me in traction, but there might be a better course of action.

When I got to his office I opened the truck door and carefully tried to step out, but having become stiffer from the drive I fell to my knees, couldn’t get back up, and so crawled to the office door while feeling very embarrassed, broken and pathetic. They took me into his consultation room where I showed quite a bit of attitude while questioning the field and benefits of chiropractics. One of my statements was, “I want to know how I got this way and what can I do to naturally fix it!”. He explained that he had done many more years of study on just the vertebrae column than any average orthopedic doctor would and took me for x-rays, showed me the curve, and explained the muscles were forcing the spine lateral to the point of pinching nerves so my body was naturally tightening to freeze it from going further. (layman’s terms)

Twice a day for the next four days he treated me by a “shock treatment” to the left side which would cause those muscles to push back. The foremost thought in my mind was that those muscles on the left needed to catch up in strength and I would have to isolate them, build them up, and make up for the many years of overbearing one-sided movements. I discussed this possibility with the doctor and said it was rare to completely correct the curve but that he knew a gymnast which had accomplished that very thing.

He helped me outline the correct type of exercises and I discovered that whenever the pain was coming on the fastest and most effective method to cure was to concentrate on my routine. The exercises along with doing work with the left side whenever possible became habit and over the course of ten years I got better and had less frequent episodes up to the point of virtually no problems or limitations. Six years ago I had x-rays again because of another issue (which I will discuss later) and I found that I now have 0% lateral curvature in my spine. Although, I do know that I will have to maintain the lifestyle change for the rest of life to keep it from reoccurring.

I realize that not everyone has these types of options, but I believe there is often a possibility for improvement through structured efforts, so the point that I would like to make here is to be a witness to that possibility while stressing that devoted lifestyle changes can be of great benefit toward a better quality of life.

 

As I became aware of spinal health and the need for me to get mine straightened out I did make a silly mistake. I was so focused on manipulating my spine to be straight that I not only succeeded in doing so laterally but also ventral-dorsal wise and ended up with a new problem.

I was forcing my lower back to the posterior thinking it should be held straight, but later, after a new kind of soreness was increasing in intensity, I went back to a Chiropractor, actually three before I found one that was “on the ball’. We discussed my prior issue and then she x-rayed me and confirmed that I no longer had a lateral curve but pointed out that I didn’t have enough anterior arch in my lower spine. I had a few treatments to speed up my new efforts which involved stretching the ligaments by what I would describe as strapping me to a post, putting a band around my lower back and cranking a geared pulley to the point where it felt like I was about to snap for about 15 minutes at a time.

After, I had to learn how to stand and sit differently; buttocks back, stomach out as to engage the abs while holding the shoulders back. I would sometimes use a 6 inch round firm pillow under the small of my back to stretch the ligaments also which really helped when soreness was coming on. This all took some practice and patience, especially while working out, but the problem has been pretty much corrected now. It all goes to show how possible it is for one can manipulate the spine and it can be for better or worse. What a positive difference it makes when one does accomplish getting his spine in the right position!