At my first Chiropractic session, my practitioner started by beginning to address the muscle imbalance in my body, i.e. all the knots, tightness and weak spots.
Starting on my front, he inserted an acupuncture needle into each shoulder, towards the end of the shoulder, at the apex of my arm, in places where he could find the sorest knot (and he had plenty of knots to choose from).
Acupuncture needles are used to stimulate groups of muscles or knots to move, to release into the correct position.
When he was locating a knot to place the acupuncture needle into, the knot on my right shoulder was very sore to the touch. But when the needles were inserted, and left to do their work, it was the left shoulder that began to ache around the needle. Which is just the reaction we're looking for, my practitioner said.
Whilst these needles were doing their magic, he also used a Tens machine on the rest of my back, placing four paddles in a rectangular shape (from what i could feel) from in line with my armpits to lower down on my ribs. The Tens machine itself made a lot of noise, a bit like a vaccum, but I've used a Tens machine before (when I was a kid, and played around with my mum's) so I knew what to expect. At first the machine was programmed to gradually increase the strength of a pins and needles type sensation through the paddle, and then it oscillated across the paddles in waves, diagonally from lower to upper, and across and then down again.
After the Tens machine had been turned off, and the acupuncture needles removed, he massaged my shoulder area, to "increase the muscle tone" I think he said. After some massage, he placed a towel over my shoulders, and made an adjustment to my back. An adjustment being cracking a joint that needed cracking. Ok, that is the simple way of putting it. I took a deep breath in, and when I exhaled, he adjusted my back.
Craaack.
Ahhh.
Turning onto my back, he made some adjustments to my neck. He turns my head gently, and then makes a little "impulse", which is a quick turn to that side, designed to help make adjustments. He said it doesn't always crack, because the joints don't always need to crack, but the impulses are designed to make the joints move. He did an impulse on a joint on my left side of my neck, and then on the right, and then when he went back to my left side, to a different joint.
Craaaaaaack-craaack-craaack.
Owwwwww.
It hurt a lot more, as I commented to him, than when I crack my neck. But that is because he actually cracked a joint that was stiff, and needed cracking.
Then he used his fingers hold specific areas under my skull. I have learned that this is the "suboccipital" area, named so because it is below the "occipitus" area.
Whoever knew this would be educational as well?
As I lay there and surrendered to the pressure of his fingers, the right side began to get very sore. I lay there for a while, thinking I could put up with it, but eventually I told him, and he released some of the pressure. Ahh, I relaxed.
He repeated that for normal people, the initial pressure is quite intense, and then it tends to dissipate. Whereas mine just got worse on the right side, and did nothing on the left.
But it was when he took his fingers away, that the muscles reacted so strangely, and the sharp pain that radiated in that area made me cry out.
Argh!
"All I did was take my fingers away!"
"I knoww, but it hurt!"
Something tells me this is going to take a while...
***
Session 2 - see above, but less pain. Except for when the Tens Machine was duly making the muscles work, and the area in the left shoulder with the acupuncture needle started aching a hell of a lot, and the pain started spreading up my neck and into my head.
***
Session 3 - see Session 2, but less pain spreading up my neck whilst the Tens Machine worked with the acupuncture needle.
He also taught me how to do a "scapular retraction". Which is a fancy term for squeezing my shoulder blades together.
***
Session 4 - see sessions 2 & 3
except this time, agony. At first, the left shoulder area had a few sharp twinges shortly after he had set the Tens machine up. He turned down the intensity, which helped hugely. But then my right started hurting, sharp stabbing pains inside my shoulder, and the left one joined in, and I almost cried. The pain seemed to come from inside my muscle and around the needle and began to spread up my neck. Oh the relief when he turned the machine off and took the needles out, especially the left one.
***
P.S Scapular retractions
hurt. He said he is not surprised it hurts when I do them, but the important thing is that I keep doing them. If I didn't think this would help, I would take the same view of eating meat - I don't like it, therefore why should I do it?
***
Session 5 - no bad pain this time, hooray! Lying on my back, with his fingers on pressure points at the base of my skull, the intensity I felt at the pressure point on my right lessened. This, as my chiropractor has said before, is what happens to
normal people with this treatment. I let him know how it was feeling, and how I relaxed I felt.
And right on cue, it reacted and as he took his fingers I yelped in pain.
Typical.
***
Sessions 6 & 7 - no pain, just relaxation
***
I now have a week without seeing my chiropractor, as he is away skiing. He says that we shall see how my head neck and back cope without what has up until now been a weekly session, and see if we need to continue having sessions weekly, or if we can have sessions fortnightly and then continue to space them out.
