Me, My Thoughts, and I: Hard Lesson to Learn

Early Saturday morning I woke up with an excruciating pain in my neck & shoulders. I could barely move without experiencing the most horrific pain I've ever felt in my life! Darren always tells me that I have a very high tolerance for pain, but this pain left me in tears. We found a chiropractor that was open on Saturdays & made plans to head that way as soon as they were open.

Unfortunately since I was a new patient all they were able to do was take x-rays & do a few "tests" to see what might be causing the pain. From what he could tell it seemed I had a pinched nerve somewhere in my neck/shoulder area. He gave me an ice pack (well, let me rephrase that...I paid for an ice pack) with instructions on using it for 20 minutes every hour, set me up for another appointment Monday morning & then sent me on my way.

Now, this was not how I envisioned my weekend going! All I was able to do was sit in the chair in our living room, ice pack on & then ice pack off, watching college football (thankfully it's that time of year again) & read. See, I had originally planned on working on sealing our tile floors & get more done off of my "to do" list (see previous post), but that was totally impossible at this point! I was left to the mercy of Darren, my kids & my ice pack...oh & Tylenol & Ibuprofen!

The pain seemed to get better with the ice on or if I got up & moved (slowly) around doing a few things here & there. I couldn't do much at all, but if I was able to move around I was less likely to get stiff. Monday morning couldn't come fast enough!!

Finally, it came! It was Monday & I headed back to the chiropractor ready to get some relief, but afraid of the pain (both physically & monetarily speaking!) that it might cause. Turns out I have a slight bit of scoliosis in my upper spine, which I already knew. On top of that the vertebra in my upper spine were all out of whack. Probably the most concerning thing of all was my neck. You see, your neck is supposed to have a 30-40 degree curve in it...with 43 degrees being best. My neck, my lovely ol' neck, has a 4 degree curve! So, compared to a normal neck (I never once claimed to be normal) mine is almost straight! This was the cause of most of the pain I am experiencing. There was also a pinched nerve in there somewhere. So, I began treatments. It wasn't too terribly painful...until they brought me into the "let's talk money" room. I am all about being healthy & I don't put a price tag on good medical care, but what they proposed to me was a bit much. I won't go into details except the fact that they wanted to see me for 40 or so appointments & our insurance only covers 25 of those, which results in a hefty price tag of over $1200 out of our own pockets. Needless to say, I am going to do whatever I can to help my condition & get my curve back (Wonder if that's like getting your groove back?!), but I am going to play it by ear (or by neck...sorry!) & see just what I feel my body needs.

If anyone out there reading my blog (anyone... Bueler... Bueler...) has any suggestions on things I can do alternatively to help with my "pain in the neck" please share! I greatly appreciate it!

Okay, I'm up for my special time with my little blue ice pack. Gotta run!
(Or in my case, walk really slowly being careful not turn too quickly!)

Here is a pic of a "normal" neck curve...