Pain in the neck
Almost immediately after coming home Friday
night, Sören was demonstrating a move that looked like a cross between
yoga, gymnastics, and Cirque du Soleil. She lay on her back, raised
her feet and legs straight up, and then dropped her legs until they were by her
head and her feet were on the floor behind her head. I looked at that position
and thought, "I can do that." OK, I didn't really think, but somewhere in my
body there was an implicit assumption that a 38-year-old man can do the same
thing an 8-year-old girl can. So I lay on my back, raised my feet and legs
straight up, and then dropped my legs until they were by my
head...
It was at this point that all of the weight of my body (except that of my head itself) was resting on my neck, which was curved in a very unusual (for me, apparently not for Sören) position. It was also at this point that Ms Pope and I both heard a very loud cracking, or popping, noise. That noise emanated from my neck. I realized that something had gone terribly wrong, and screamed: "Um!. No. Um. Ow." And proceeded to continue to roll over until I could pull my head out from under my body and rest on my stomach. But I couldn't rest there for long, because my neck was in excruciating agony, and it hurt like hell to lie with my head facing in either direction...
It was at this point that all of the weight of my body (except that of my head itself) was resting on my neck, which was curved in a very unusual (for me, apparently not for Sören) position. It was also at this point that Ms Pope and I both heard a very loud cracking, or popping, noise. That noise emanated from my neck. I realized that something had gone terribly wrong, and screamed: "Um!. No. Um. Ow." And proceeded to continue to roll over until I could pull my head out from under my body and rest on my stomach. But I couldn't rest there for long, because my neck was in excruciating agony, and it hurt like hell to lie with my head facing in either direction...
Ms Pope helped me get up and I went into the
bedroom to administer first a heating pad, then an ice pack, in twenty-minute
periods. Sören remained very helpful the entire time, massaging parts of my
neck that she thought needed it (it wasn't massage so much as gently resting two
or three fingers at a time on part of the neck) and comforting me by saying,
"Everybody makes mistakes, Daddy. Not everybody can make that move." I kept
thinking to myself that the flaw in what I did was that I didn't use my arms to
support my back as I was making the flip over; that would have taken some of the
pressure off of my neck. Not that I was about to repeat the maneuver with more
support for the neck. I wasn't ever going to try to do that again. Eventually, I
took some Advil, we watched Spellbound together, and I went to
bed.
When I awoke Saturday morning, the first thing I did was confirm that chiropractic work is covered by UHC, my insurance provider. It is. Then I started going through UHC's less than stellar website to find a network chiropractor who might be open on Saturday. I called several who were listed as open on weekends, whose outgoing phone message clearly indicated they weren't. And I found a few that might be open by noon, but there was no way to know if they would take a new patient that day on such short notice. Eventually, I went back to the top of the list, because there was a Dr Greg Zygmont whose office was about a mile or so from our house. His listing did not indicate they were open on Saturday, but I called at about 7:55 and his wife answered, and she was able to set me up with an appointment by 9:30.
Sören had to go with me because Ms Pope was doing her last Saturday morning Jazzercise class management deal, and they don't have child care on weekends. But she was an absolute doll. She read her magazines and didn't cause a fuss at all. Dr Zygmont did an efficient job of going through the initial check-in questions, and put me on a bed with some kind of electrical interference for the muscles in my upper back and neck. That felt completely weird. It caused the muscles to spasm, the intent being, apparently, to force them to relax. Even though I knew a spasm round was coming up and my shoulders would be about to shudder, I would try to control it, to lessen the spasm, and I had no control over it at all. I am sure that I wasn't supposed to be trying to control the spasms, but I was. And failing. But it did help me relax. A little.
He then put me on a roller bed. I lay on my back, and a mechanical roller would vibrate from the base of my hips, slowly up to the top of my back, and then back down again. After about fifteen minutes or so of this, I went back into an office, and he did his adjustment. I had never been adjusted before, and so could not shake the thought that as he was cradling my head in his hands and about to move my head rapidly in one direction, that he was going to break my neck like in some hit man movie. But no. These sounds that were even scarier than the popping noise from the night before kept coming out of my spine, but it was a great release.
I have been doing ice on the neck and a little bit of Advil since Saturday morning. Sunday morning getting out of bed was the only rough spot. Other than that, my pain has gone down from maybe a 7 or 8 (on a 10-point scale) to about 2. Last night, I tried swimming (a little), and I definitely had decreased range of motion, but no real pain. Whew.
I have another appointment this morning (in 30 minutes) and two more this week, so will see how this continues to get better, but I am now a big convert to chiropractic care.
I will say that our neighbor, Valerie, said she had gone to his old office when he was still working with his sister, Dr Colette Zygmont, and found Dr Greg to be arrogant. She wouldn't go back to him. But I loved it.
When I awoke Saturday morning, the first thing I did was confirm that chiropractic work is covered by UHC, my insurance provider. It is. Then I started going through UHC's less than stellar website to find a network chiropractor who might be open on Saturday. I called several who were listed as open on weekends, whose outgoing phone message clearly indicated they weren't. And I found a few that might be open by noon, but there was no way to know if they would take a new patient that day on such short notice. Eventually, I went back to the top of the list, because there was a Dr Greg Zygmont whose office was about a mile or so from our house. His listing did not indicate they were open on Saturday, but I called at about 7:55 and his wife answered, and she was able to set me up with an appointment by 9:30.
Sören had to go with me because Ms Pope was doing her last Saturday morning Jazzercise class management deal, and they don't have child care on weekends. But she was an absolute doll. She read her magazines and didn't cause a fuss at all. Dr Zygmont did an efficient job of going through the initial check-in questions, and put me on a bed with some kind of electrical interference for the muscles in my upper back and neck. That felt completely weird. It caused the muscles to spasm, the intent being, apparently, to force them to relax. Even though I knew a spasm round was coming up and my shoulders would be about to shudder, I would try to control it, to lessen the spasm, and I had no control over it at all. I am sure that I wasn't supposed to be trying to control the spasms, but I was. And failing. But it did help me relax. A little.
He then put me on a roller bed. I lay on my back, and a mechanical roller would vibrate from the base of my hips, slowly up to the top of my back, and then back down again. After about fifteen minutes or so of this, I went back into an office, and he did his adjustment. I had never been adjusted before, and so could not shake the thought that as he was cradling my head in his hands and about to move my head rapidly in one direction, that he was going to break my neck like in some hit man movie. But no. These sounds that were even scarier than the popping noise from the night before kept coming out of my spine, but it was a great release.
I have been doing ice on the neck and a little bit of Advil since Saturday morning. Sunday morning getting out of bed was the only rough spot. Other than that, my pain has gone down from maybe a 7 or 8 (on a 10-point scale) to about 2. Last night, I tried swimming (a little), and I definitely had decreased range of motion, but no real pain. Whew.
I have another appointment this morning (in 30 minutes) and two more this week, so will see how this continues to get better, but I am now a big convert to chiropractic care.
I will say that our neighbor, Valerie, said she had gone to his old office when he was still working with his sister, Dr Colette Zygmont, and found Dr Greg to be arrogant. She wouldn't go back to him. But I loved it.
Posted: Mon - August 14, 2006 at 07:31 AM
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Published On: Aug 14, 2006 07:31 AM
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Published On: Aug 14, 2006 07:31 AM