In 2003 I was putting some clothes away in a bottom dresser drawer and was probably in a bad or awkward position and was already feeling some back strain from doing house and yard work, so when I went to sand back up, I twisted my back. The pain was excruciating. I couldn’t stand up straight and then started having severe back muscle spasms. If you’ve ever had a really bad “Charlie horse” in your calf, just imagine what it is like to have one all across your entire lower back that happens every time you try to stand up, sit down, get out of bed, move, etc. and will just not stop or go away no matter what you do.
After several days of this and forcing myself to go to work but having much trouble walking around the office, getting up out of my office chair or getting into or out of my car without nearly screaming in pain and now also experiencing numbness and tingling in my legs and arms, my boss told me “you need to see a doctor and you need to go now”.
So I made an appointment to see an orthopedic and was seen two days later based on the amount of pain and distress I was in. Fortunately the insurance plan I had at the time, a PPO (and FWIW – I was working for one of those “evil” pharmaceutical companies at the time as a payroll manager) was excellent and allowed me to self refer to a specialist without having to go through gate keeper first such as with an HMO plan.
The orthopedic I saw belonged to a large and highly rated and well known practice that FWIW was the orthopedic practice that had a large “sports medicine” department that was the “go to” practice for orthopedic problems and injuries for the Baltimore Orioles and many other local sports teams at the time.
The orthopedic doctor I saw had x-rays taken of my back and performed a very extensive physical exam including range of motion and reflex tests and asked me a lot of questions about my life style in terms of my daily activities, what sports if any sports that I did (I was an avid golfer at the time and went to a gym at least twice a week) and the ergonomics of my office chair and desk. The exam and the consultation with him was nearly an hour long.
At the end, he told me that although the x-rays showed a slight compression of the L5 and L6 vertebras – some early signs of arthritis, there was no indication of a herniated disk or a bulged disk which was very good news. But that there was definitely inflammation, and that my problem was more a muscular strain rather than a spinal problem – the muscle strain caused inflammation which put pressure on the back nerves, especially on the L5 and L6 vertebras where there was compression, and that caused nerve pain which when the pain was triggered, then cause more muscle tightness and spasms which caused even more pressure on the back nerves, and more nerve pain that triggered more spasms and muscle tightness, and so on and so on in an endless cycle.
He gave me an Rx for some Percocet for the severe pain, only an Rx for a few days worth to get me through the worst of the pain, and a muscle relaxer to alleviate the muscle spasms which was a real “God Send” at the time, and a Rx for an anti-inflammatory drug, along with instructions on using alternating heat and cold compresses, but then told me that the most important thing that he was prescribing for me was that he was sending me to “Back School”. And “Back School” was a referral to a licensed physical therapist.
And the physical therapist/practice that I was referred to was also great.
She did her own very extensive physical exam and range of motion tests and interview and reviewed my x-rays and found that my pelvis was severely tilted both up and sideways (but more of a muscular problem and not a real curvature of the spine – the muscles on my right side were much more tense and tight than they were on the left side) and she came up with a treatment plan that included deep tissue massage and heat and ultrasound therapy to alleviate the pain (along with the drugs) and inflammation and relax the muscles in the short term.
But even more importantly, she and the other physical therapists gave me lessons on daily stretching routines (and FWIW a lot of low back problems actually stem from having very tight calf and ham string muscles which I definitely had) and lessons on core stability and strengthening exercises that I could do at home; advice how to properly use equipment at the gym - what exercises were good and what exercises and what gym equipment to avoid; how to properly warm up and stretch before playing golf, along with lessons on how to best set up my work and home office in an ergonomic friendly way and even how to properly lift and bend and get into and out of a my car without causing muscle and back strain and how to relieve and prevent and deal with muscular stress resulting from good old workplace stress in the neck and upper back which I also tend to have. It really was, as the doc said - “Back School” and very “holistic” actually as they were not just treating the symptoms of my back pain but teaching me methods for .
After about 10 weeks of physical therapy, going at first 3 times a week but then 2 and then 1 time a week and then following though with the stretches and exercises, my back never felt better.
Several years later I had a relapse and FWIW it was completely my fault, I had stopped doing my stretches and core stability exercises and had gained some weight : ( and again was having severe back pain and the muscle spasms. I was working at another company by then and we didn’t have very good insurance but the owner of the company was all into alternative medicine so the benefits of going to a chiropractor or ah homeopath, etc. was actually better than going to a traditional doctor or physical therapist in some cases.
And my boss at the time swore by her chiropractor and recommended that I go see him, told me how much he had helped her so, why not give it a try.
He didn’t do much of any sort of physical exam or conduct much of an interview or get my prior medical history or have request my old or have any new x-rays taken. What he did do was to perform several spinal adjustments that were basically “cracking my head and neck” which was scary and very painful and in reality gave me very little relief, very temporary at best, and then he used some sort of thing that was what I called “the thumper” - a tool that hit areas of my back and neck sort of like a hand held mini jack hammer - sort of like this:
This was really painful and didn’t seem to do much of anything other than cause me even more pain and inflammation and left me with bruises and big red welts on my back.
He also recommended that I come to see him 2 times a day for these spinal adjustments and a go over with “the thumper” over the next several months and also recommended that I buy his regime of special proprietary dietary supplements and “colon cleanses”, health food shakes and the videos and books he sold on the benefits of meditation and healing crystals, aromatherapy, past life regression, veganism, organic foods, homeopathy and all other such nonsense. When he found out I was on high blood pressure medication, he suggested that he could “cure” me of this – exactly how, we never got into.
Why? Because after the 3rd visit, I stopped going and went back to doing the stretches and core stability exercises the physical therapist had given me some years earlier which actually helped and put me back on track to better back health – all without healing crystals, meditation, past life regression therapy and a “colon blow”.
That’s not to say that all chiropractors are quacks, some are very much like and do many of the same things that a licensed physical therapist will do (but then why not just go to a licensed physical therapist?) But there are those chiropractors like the one I went to, who are into a lot of quackery.
But holistic is sold as being alternative medicine which is often just quackery. E.g. there is no reason to presume that spinal alignment causes diabetes, and the efficacy of most herbal treatments is on par with magnet bracelets and healing crystals.
Homeopathic ER (or as the Brits say A&E - Accidents and Emergencies)
His chakra's are fading, he's going to need some crystals
LOL!