Friday, January 29, 2010

Is it working?

Today I have a lot of time to write since I'm in clinic w/ Ethan. So I'll give an update on my chiropractic appointments.

I've been seeing the chiropractor for three weeks. The first week I went every day. The second and third weeks I've gone 3x a week.

The very first adjustment I had, I felt sure it was going to help my leg. Sort of hard to describe, but when I was doing physical therapy, I was told that my groin would start popping when things started repositioning. That happened to my right leg, but not my left, the one that hurts. The morning after my first adjustment, I got out of bed and POP went my left leg. Also, that first week, a couple times when I got adjusted in my back, I could feel sensations going right down into my leg where it hurts. These two things made me think that the adjustments were indeed hitting the affected area.

Since then, I haven't had total improvement, but I'm not getting any worse and some things are definitely getting better (my neck and lower back). My leg still feels off, and the chiropractor said that would be the last thing to get relief. I don't know if he just said that b/c he wanted to reassure me, or if it's really based on evidence. Anyway, it seems to make sense, but at the same time, it's discouraging to me to hear all the stories of people who've tried chiro care and haven't gotten help. So I'll just keep plugging away, hoping insurance kicks in at some point so I don't have to pay all out of pocket, and go the full course - 4 more wks of 3x a wk, then 6 wks of 2x a week. The doctor said we're fixing a leaky roof rather than just patching it, which would have been my other alternative w/ less adjustments.

My adjustments feel good. They use a machine called the pro-adjuster. If you want to see it, just look it up on WebMd, there's a video. The thing I like about it is that it measures how much adjustment my body needs, signals when I've had as much as I can handle for the day, and graphs my progress overall. I get a sort of pressure/vibration applied to my spine at my neck, my middle back, my lower back, both sides of my sacrum, my outer hip, and then down my bad leg. It takes about 3-5 minutes.

1 comment:

David Loomis said...

Thanks for the update! I'm reading this in Baltimore, MD :).

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