Chiropractic update

Tracy poked me on my previous post, asking for updates about the chiropractor, et cetera. While the smart thing to do would have been to update here, I've probably sent emails to half a dozen people or so who've asked, and left it at that.

So! Here's what's up. Let me begin with visual aid. (Click the picture to go to Flickr and see the full-size version.)

Here's what you're looking at. The vertebrae are marked and numbered. The solid, dark line is the way my neck is supposed to curve. The chiropractor said that, of roughly 10,000 cervical spine x-rays he's seen, the curvature of my cervical spine is among the five worst. This causes nasty amounts of pain, it's why I have all kinds of scar tissue built up, et cetera.

C5, toward the front, appears to have suffered a compression fracture - probably back when I was in eight grade and took a face-first dive off of the top bar of a swingset. It was never identified at the time. There's also some degeneration in C5 and C6.

Aside from my neck, my sacrum was out; he fixed that, and my lower back has been quite happy with me since that second visit. My upper back and neck vary. I've been going to see Jay (my chiropractor) pretty close to every day (or every other, at least). Some days I walk out of there feeling like a million bucks. Others, I am so. Bloody. Sore. I ice when I get home, and at intervals throughout the day. Laying down helps the worst of it. I have postural exercises to do which are a bitch and make me want to cry, but I see the value in them so I do them anyway. Jay says I'm responding better (and more quickly) to treatment than he expected, and I'm inclined to agree. I've also been taking it fairly easy, and doing as he says.

Mutter mutter mutter icepack mutter.