This is the first time in the history of my headache that I haven't plunged straight in with a new treatment with the first practitioner I've seen.
Today I had my second opinion from a chiropractor at Chiltern Health Centre in Sutton. And he said some similar, and some different things.
For a start, he didn't take any x-rays, but he looked at a neck x-ray I had left with the hypnotherapist at the clinic when I first started seeing him in January. Which lasted on two sessions before I had to start working on Saturdays and didn't manage to go back.
This neck x-ray is 4 years old, and I have had my car crash since then, but he still did the routine testing of the joints and when he compared what he felt to the x-ray, he said there wasn't much difference. This x-ray showed my neck is quite straight.
Well, at least it's not backwards.
Of course there were the usual 'oofs' and 'oohs' from me when he touched sensitive spots. And there was the usual "what the..." when he touched my shoulders and felt how rock solid they are (and not in a good rock solid muscle way. In a bad they-aren't-moving-not-because-I'm beefy-but-because-they're-broken way.
He took my medical history, during which I jumped all over the place - MRIs, drugs, Osteopathy, hypnotherapy, this year, that year.
He was glad to hear I wasn't hurt in the car crash, but seemed amused that I'd gotten acquainted with a ditch.
I got changed into a gown that had velcro up the back and he moved my head around and felt my neck joints. He lay me on a moving bed (well I stood on a foot plate against the vertical bed, then the whole thing moved backwards until horizontal) and he felt around the top of my neck. He pushed his fingers in the same places, like hooking his fingers under my skull. I do it to alleviate pain, and that's the same place I'm always rubbing. After a while he said the intensity should be ebbing away, and I said no, it's getting more intense on the right side. "Ah", he said. "You're not normal."
So after establishing that my shoulders are rock solid and I'm not normal because the intensity got worse... he said something that I have known for a while, and that the other chiropractor didn't really touch on: that the muscles and spine are connected, and neither one are letting the other do their job properly. My muscles in particular are baddies in this scenario, because as they get tighter, they pull the joints into the wrong position, and that's where they get stuck, and the other joints have to compensate.
I'm very aware my posture isn't bad, so really it's no news to me that I stick my head out and I'm rounding my back. Everything this guy said was matter of fact, no nonsense.
And the best (and worst) thing he said? Was that he doesn't know if this will make me better, and therefore he doesn't know how long it will take.
I have had so many people promise me I'll only need so many sessions, and I'm still going back after a year. When someone says to me "You'll be good as new in 10 sessions" I think "so I'll still be the same in 20 sessions". It's pessimistic, I know, but I have had so many false hopes.
This chiropractor recognises that both the joints and spine, and the muscle balance need to be addresses, simultaneously. And he said he'd use various different methods to do that when treating me, such as acupuncture and Tens machine, etc.
But, none of this will work, without my commitment.
And it has taken me this long but I realise now that no wonder the other treatments don't work - one hour, here and there, won't fix me, if I don't carry on treating myself at home.
I'm not talking learning how to adjust my own back. I'm talking stretches, exercise, hydration, healthy eating. I'm talking building up my muscle strength and making sure my muscles are strong enough to keep my spine healthy.
This is a way of life, I'm committing to. I'm not just having yet another treatment. I'm learning to heal myself, any way I can.
The question is, am I ready to commit?
Oh, and he told me to stop cracking my neck and back. Dammit.
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