(no subject)

[digitaldiscipline]

Initial chiro consult - probably a bulging or slightly slipped disk at the L/S boundary, but getting an x-ray this afternoon to confirm. This is my not-surprised face, because it's more than likely what happened before, and what my dad had repaired when he was 70.

Good news: It isn't sciatica. "Does it hurt when I do this?" "A little, maybe a three or four." "If your sciatic nerve was the problem, you'd be trying to kill me, so it's not that."

Nurse takes blood pressure: "140/95."
Me: "Sounds about right."
Nurse: "You've got high blood pressure?"
Me: "No, I'm just in a lot of pain." (My last blood donation was something like 112/68 with a pulse of 54. Standing around and walking is a 6 to 8 on the "please stop stabbing me" scale, fun times)

I got two gold stars from the doc for my penchant for standing at my desk and applying ice to the site of the injury as opposed to where it actually hurts. Got a couple recommendations for exercises/things I can do to help alleviate the discomfort - knees to chest while lying on my back and rolling around like a pillbug and sitting/standing hipshot or otherwise unevenly to direct the pressure on the unhappy point in less constant/uniform ways.

He didn't come right out and tell me not to lift, and, since it actually hurts less to lift than it does to walk, I will continue to do so (yes, carefully).

I also picked up an inversion table from a used sporting goods store (walked in b/c I was next door at the used bookstore trying to find a local author's early work for my parents, without success, and they'd taken delivery of this thing half an hour earlier), so I get to hang upside down like batman for a few minutes at a time to stretch. mostly feeling that in my obliques and the front of my hips until the muscles relax for the time being.

Comments

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

*sympathetic understanding fistbump*

[etcet.livejournal.com]

This getting old shit sucks.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

But it's better than the alternative!

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Fuck that, I want eternal youth.

[thebigpants.livejournal.com]

Let me know how the table works. We've been eyeing them for John's compression issue.

Take it easy.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

It's interesting. I am only using it for about twenty slow breaths at a time - they say you shouldn't use it for too long at a pop, especially initially.

i was, honestly, expecting to sound like bubble wrap as my spine decompressed, but i think i'm still too bound up around the injury site for that to happen. i can definitely feel the pull in my obliques and hip flexors and rector femoris as my hips are opened up, which is definitely a thing that needs to happen, and i think that, as i get back into better alignment and loosen up, things are apt to pop a bit as i settle in and stretch out and i get closer to full inversion, instead of about 70 degrees

[thebigpants.livejournal.com]

I could really use some opening up of the hip flexors as well. I think we might just go for one of these tables.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

Absent one of those tables, I have found this stretching routine beneficial:

http://www.t-nation.com/training/trouble-with-the-tilt-correcting-apt

(also, and absolutely hellacious, is the "put your shin vertically against the wall or couch, and work your body back so that your ass touches your foot, with your other leg in front of you in a half-lunge supporting you" thing)

[laurenthemself]

I hope the exercises work out for you. The table sounds very awesome.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I felt bad about having to skip yesterday's workout, but there was a confluence of stuff that basically led me to the position of "i can have a shitty workout and probably hurt myself" so i gave it a miss, and will lift today.

[tygenco-x.livejournal.com]

I had lower spine and pelvic xrays done recently--the specialist ignored the fact that I said spondyloarthropathy that ISN'T A.S. (aka bamboo spine)--and all they could tell me when I went in for the follow up was that there was inflammation in my right hip joint. The guy then went on to point out that "it's normal for someone at your age to be showing some signs of arthritis, but this isn't related to what we're looking for".

"at your age". If it hadn't been for the fact that I was already annoyed at having to go through unnecessary xrays, I'd have been annoyed about that phrasing alone.

(and that inflammation in my right hip joint? I was born without full rotation in the right hip socket (which is interesting because my mother had a leg injury that messed up her right hip socket when she was a kid) and I have never been able to get anything in the way of better rotation results. Mostly it means I can't do the splits; there are some leg stretches I can't do very well or at all, either)

[etcet.livejournal.com]

How is your mobility as far as getting low when doing squats? some folks have better skeletal mechanics for it than others (mine is... not great; i can get into a good low squat, but am not powerful down there, because i have a lot of forward lean in my torso, which introduces/exacerbates shear forces when there's a lot of weight on my shoulders)

[tygenco-x.livejournal.com]

Not good. Even with belly dance and stretches and tai chi, it's dismal at best. It's just getting worse as I get older, and I try to keep moving around because apparently that's the only other thing I can do to help ease some of the problems.

Pain... Pain is a weird factor for me when it comes to that particular joint. The pain likes to manifest in my hands and wrists, but lately it's been creeping into my lower back and neck. More than anything, it's frustrating.

[kyra-ojosverdes.livejournal.com]

I am also interested in your experience with the inversion table, also having back/disc issues. Good luck with pain/symptom reduction.

[etcet.livejournal.com]

I was honestly expecting a skeletal rendition of Handel's Messiah when I lowered myself to nearly complete inversion, as my spine unlimbered like so much calcified bubble wrap.

that... is not what happened. my hips haven't popped, nor my ankles or knees. i think a couple of bits of twisting my body around the long axis caused some minor alignment pops, but nothing on the epiphanic levels of the first time i dropped into a deep bodyweight squat and both hips went off like knotholes in a bonfire.

there was a surprising amount of rector femoris and lateral oblique stretch while doing deep exhales - probably chronically short due to sitting at a desk, etc - and this felt quite good once i was able to relax into it.

it's curiously hard on the ankles; doing it while wearing combat boots might quell some of the pinch there, despite the padded, C-shaped cuffs that cinch around your ankles.

i use it for a couple of minutes early in the morning, again when i get home from work, and before bedtime; usually between fifteen and forty long, slow, deep breaths is enough (or my ankles' tolerance dictates when it's time to stop)