Chiropractic sessions

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.

Trying to be NICE

The Chiltern Health Centre, where I have been most recently for a chiropractic consultation, and at the beginning of last year for hypnotherapy, drew my attention to a recent report from NICE, regarding medication overuse headaches. This blog, written by one of the practitioners at the clinic, talks about the report's findings and looks at it from a Chiropractic and Osteopathic perspective (the author is herself an Osteopath).

Medication Overuse headache is caused, put simply, by taking too many painkillers. This amounts to taking over the counter medicines such as aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen (which is an NSAID - non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug) on more than 15 days a month, or opioids, ergots, triptans for more than 10 days a month. These latter three are anti-migraine medicines. I have in fact been prescribed with Triptans, to help fight any migraine attacks. I got a prescription of 6 tablets about 3 or 4 years ago, and am now down to my last tablet.

Taking painkillers for a headache can result in a withdrawal headache if you rely too much on the drugs to eliminate the pain. The "vicious cycle" as it so often described is accurate. My head hurts, and I want it to stop. So I take a pill. But taking the pill makes my head hurt, and because my head still hurts, I take another pill. My head still hurts. And so the cycle continues.

NICE's recommendation, according to the blog & the report, is cease taking the medication immediately, and stay off them for a month. Unfortunately, as is pointed out by the blog and many other sources, "Headache symptoms are likely to get worse in the short term before they improve and there may be associated withdrawal symptoms"

So. My head hurts. I take a pill. The pill makes my head hurt. I take another pill. Cycle.
My head hurts. I stop taking pills. My still hurts, and in fact, almost like a nicotine craving in the brain when you quit smoking, the head goes ballistic with pain because it's not getting any pills, and because you can't take any pills, the pain doesn't go away or decrease when you need or want it to. Slowly, this pain does subside, and the dependence dissipates. Eventually, hopefully, cycle broken.

I am hopelessly reliant on painkillers. It used to be ibuprofen, but more recently it is paracetamol, because (inevitably, really) ibuprofen wasn't really doing the trick. And at first, paracetamol did too. And to some extent, paracetamol still works because it often takes the edge off the worst headaches (and I now reserve painkiller usage to when I can't move without my head or face searing with pain).

The chiropractor I saw for my second opinion reminded me of these findings/recommendations, and after I saw him, I decided to give two weeks a go. I had already accidentally managed a week, so I decided to try for another week. Needless to say, this second week has not been as breezy (because my headache is self-aware and resists any attempts to remove it?) From Sunday through to Tuesday, I was in quite a lot of pain. Alcohol dulled the pain, but left me open to dehydration related agony the following day, so I kept that at a glass or two in the evening.
By Tuesday (1st Jan) I couldn't do it. I couldn't move without my head being in agony, and I couldn't get to sleep to try and make it go away. So I gave in and took a triptan tablet. This isn't strictly forbidden, from my understanding, since my dependence is on regular painkillers. And it certainly helped take most of the headache away, and I was able to actually get stuff done and be myself again. As I commented to a friend, Monday was "just one of those days that no matter what, I am my headache. There's no happiness, sadness, excitement, nothing." And that was only day two. So by day three, even though I was willing myself to be strong, I'm not made of stone, and I took a pill.

But today is the last day of two weeks without paracetamol, ibuprofen or aspirin.  Tomorrow, I'll embark on another two weeks and hopefully be able to negotiate any agony with resistance.
The end goal is freedom. If I keep that in mind, I think I'll be able to do it.

But I reserve the right to have a duvet day if I feel like my head is expanding from the inside out.

My First Second Opinion

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.

My Back Aches

One of the few alternative therapies I have never tried over the course of the last 7 years is Chiropractic treatment. It has often been suggested to me, but I have tried almost everything else.

So a few months ago when I was walking through the Epsom shopping mall I jumped at the chance for a quick and free back check. I then signed up for a full consultation, which only cost me £50, including any x-rays required.

The place I went to is called ProBack, and I saw a Dr. Christian Allard.
The first time I went he explained how a back should look, and then he caused me pain by making me touch my toes and try to bend into various difficult positions. He checked my posture, he looked at my neck. He took a general medical history too.
He said he thought it was my brain stem causing the soreness I always feel and also causing my headache. Did you know the brain stem is the first thing in a person to develop? Dr. Allard also decided I needed x-rays.

I had to wait quite a few weeks for my x-rays at the clinic, because it was waiting for a part from America in order to make it work. But I got the results literally 10 minutes after the x-rays were done.

Dr. Allard asked me if I was sure I hadn't been dropped as a baby or been in a car accident. My thoracic vertebrae looks good, my lumbar are a bit out but really only because my neck curve is reversed.
Yes. You read that right.
My neck curve is reversed. I think this roughly translates into my neck is backwards.
My cervical curve is the wrong way, and he thinks that is causing my headache and a lot of my pain.
Yay.
There's also a big gap between my first vertebrae and spine on my right-hand side, which accounts for the loss of sensation. (In my first appointment, he moved a feather down my hands and feet to see if I could feel it. I could barely feel anything on my right hand side.)

So some permanent nerve damage, but not completely untreatable.
I do, however, have the back of a 40-year-old.

So what is the solution, according to Dr. Allard and ProBack.

ProBack use a particular machine to treat back problems, called the ProBack Pulse. Rather than the usual back cracking you might associate with chiropractors, ProBack practitioners do not work on that basis. The Pulse machine works to record the health of your spine, one vertebrae at a time, and then uses vibration to loosen the tension and reposition vertebrae to make it better. I'm not going to lie, it sounds like a taser. But it does not hurt at all, and it does make you feel looser, but for me it did not eradicate any pain.
If I want to treat my back effectively, and get it back to full health, Dr. Allard recommends 3 sets of 12 treatments. The first 12 are done in quick succession - 3x a week for 4 weeks, or 4x a week for 3 weeks. The next 12 are done twice weekly, for 6 weeks. Then once a week for 12 weeks. So you are looking at up 22 weeks.
And each treatment is £40. There is a payment plan available, but you do the math.

Cost never used to be an issue for me with treatments for my head. But because I have tried so many, and been let down so often, this is quite an expensive gamble. There is no guarantee this will cure my headache, although it is guaranteed to make me taller by improving my posture.

The theory is that I have a headache because my back and shoulders and neck are bad, and my back, shoulders and neck are bad because I have a headache. Vicious cycle.

Could Dr. Allard, and ProBack finally be the cure?
I'll kick myself if it is and it's taken me 7 years to get here!

But I am going to get a second opinion first. Much as I trust them, and they have given me no reason to think they are lying (and I saw the x-rays, my neck is the wrong way!), I want to be sure I am going to get a result for my money.

So watch this space, and I'll let you know whether Dr. Christian Allard saves the day.

Funnily enough, the way I've sat to write this blog, has made my back hurt :(

Aftermath

Today, I visited the dark world I rarely inhabit - only this time, I was at work.

As I sat there trying desperately to ignore the growing pain, all I could think was that I had so much work to do.

Because migraines, they stop you doing anything. They sap all your energy. They stop your thoughts from making any sense.
"I don't live in Sutton, I live in England", came out of my mouth today during this delirium.
As well as saying "I'm so high" when I got dizzy. I meant high as in tall. Which I'm definitely not.

But whilst the migraine stops you, nothing else stops. The world keeps turning. Work carries on. But without you, despite your best efforts.

I wanted desperately to stay. I had things to do.
But when you have to go and lie down in a medical room with a pillow over your face, there's not all that much you can get done at work.

I'm fed up. I can't remember the last time I felt well. I'm 23, I want to make the most of my life! I want to be able to work to my full potential, socialise and have fun. I don't want to go home to bed every night feeling drained because my head has not stopped hurting.

I don't get why I've had two migraine attacks in such a short period of time. I have only really had a few before, maybe one a year on average.
The worst thing is I will probably never discover why. I can see doctors, osteopaths, chiropractors and even hypnotherapists.
But what can they do? Crack my back and make me forget it ever happened?

I just want it to stop hurting. 10 hours later and I'm still struggling with bright light, and loud noises, and the pain in my head that comes and goes like waves.

I would like to wave goodbye to it please. Pretty please. With an aspirin on top.

A World of Pain

I am writing this blog from a dark place that I do not visit regularly, or stay in long.
But when I leave, the door to this dark place is always open. Always ready to receive me. Always happy to welcome me into its unrelenting and tortuous arms.

Because the pain that leads to this dark place never stops. It never goes away. I can never turn my back on it, because it is always there. It is such a part of me that I think the only way it will end, is when I do.

I'm stronger than I used to be about it. I am able to write this blog. I have been able to work, and commute home from work, and when I got in I fed the cats. I have been able to take off my jewellery and get into my pyjamas.

But this pain systematically claws at this strength I cling to, looking for the weak spots.

And when it finds them, I end up collapsed on the kitchen floor sobbing my heart out, but afraid to move because every turn of my head results in more agony.

I heard on the radio this morning, that Nice have issued official advice for headache sufferers, which include Acupuncture for tension headaches, and not taking painkillers. My nan even cut out the article from The Telegraph for me.

This is something I already knew. Medication overuse is one of the vague reasons given to me for my 7 year itch headache. That, as well as psychological problems and anxiety about joining Sixth Form, riding too many rollercoasters in Florida, drinking Coca-Cola and eating chocolate. One of my GPs actually suggested that maybe when my parent's divorce had finally been settled, my headaches would get better.
Yes, the divorce they started LAST YEAR. 6 years into this pain.

So, for those suggesting that my Chronic Daily Tension Headache could be treated with Acupuncture, may I inform I have had 2 courses of Acupuncture, one lasting about 8 or 9 weeks when I was in Sixth Form (so right at the beginning of my headache), and another lasting months, and provided by the NHS, during my 2nd and 3rd years at university.
And oh wait, I'm not cured.

As for taking too many painkillers, that's a No Sh*t Sherlock situation. I have not been the most responsible with painkillers over my life time and they have usually been the first thing I reach for when my head hurts. I have pushed myself to resist, and today I did. for 4 hours. Until my headache got so unbearable I could barely walk straight and I thought I was going to pass out and/or vomit from the pain.
3 hours later, the headache is marginally better. I still feel hugely nauseous and faint.

Going cold turkey from painkillers is not mission impossible, but it is mission un-bloody-likely. Not when you've had 7 years of pain already and whilst you can cope with the day to day dull ache that NEVER.GOES.AWAY, the blinding nausea-inducing headaches are not going to go away unless you go to sleep then and there. And when you are trying to make a living and get on with your life, that's not going to happen.

The neurologist in The Telegraph article recommends that coming off the painkillers should be done in consultation with your GP about preventative medication.
Ohhh! Why haven't I tried that??

Oh wait yeah. Years number 3 and 4 of headache. Silly me.

So essentially, this new "official advice" proffered up today to us poor headache sufferers (of which there are 1 million of us with medication overuse headaches, and a further 1.5 million with tension headaches - so which group do I wallow with I if I have a Chronic Tension headache possibly caused by medication overuse and/or tension?) is nothing I haven't heard before.
Oh except that tension headaches are difficult to treat.

No wait, I knew that one too.

**

Do I walk around with haunted eyes?
Do you see the pain that resides
Behind them?

The stabbing, the scraping, the hot poker iron.
The hammer, or mallet, the roar like a lion
When it throbs, and it pounds, and whirls me around
The world of pain.
Welcome. We hope you enjoy your stay.

Action Week

Ages ago, I decided that doing several things in one go to target my headache would be a useful experiment.

So in the last 5 days, I've had my own little headache action week.

Last Thursday, I had a 2 hour sports massage. It was brutal at times, but I wanted to start loosening my knots, in order to help the Botox, that I had booked in for Saturday, to work.
I still felt pretty knotted up afterwards, but it did help. I came home and did a hypnotherapy relaxation session from CD as soon as I got back. I wanted to help my muscles relax as much as possible.

On Saturday I had Botox treatment. The first time I had Botox for my headache, it helped somewhat, but that was 6 months ago now. I saw a different doctor this time, at a different clinic, and I have a review session in 2 weeks. This doctor explained the muscles in my head, and why he'd put the Botox in the particular places. When he showed me which muscles he'd be injecting, they started to hurt more in anticipation (or a last offensive attack?) The doctor was jovial, and I can't wait to go back haha!

I did another hypnotherapy relaxation session over the weekend too. I get fidgety, it's hard to stay still for so long. But it does make me feel quite relaxed.

Today, I had a good Raynor massage from Dave Taylor. We get on very well, and he knows my body very well too. When he finished, I lay there in headache-free bliss for a few moments.
Today is the first day that the Botox starts getting to work (3 days after treatment, 14 days maximum it takes to work), and my headache pain has been minimal. It has barely spiked above a 5 today, and has rested mostly at a 2 or 3! Walking around made it worse at times, and some of the pain has probably come from dehydration. But mostly the worse pains I've felt today have been muscular. So that's something!

I just wish I had the time, and the money, to have more regular treatments.

Maybe now is the time to start Yoga again, while my head has a chance.