Chiropractic care

Cool photo of the fireworks at the Magic Kingdom- Thanks Uncle R!

Back when LMS was a baby, Mr M hurt his back while doing PT (they have some stupid exercises that don't use proper body mechanics). As a result, he ended up in physical therapy, followed by visits to the chiropractor. The pt and chiropractor helped, though he still has problems with his back depending on what he's been doing. When we moved here, he was asking around and got a recommendation for an awesome chiropractor, who's been able to help Mr M so much.

A few months later, Mr M convinced me to go the chiropractor also. Not that I don't believe they can help; I was more concerned about the cost. I knew a visit or two could be helpful- I'd gone when I was pregnant with LMS and experiencing excruciating hip pain (I couldn't walk without massive amounts of pain- even cleaning the house was too much for me till I got an adjustment by a chiropractor), but it can get pricey since our insurance doesn't cover chiropractic care.

In the end, I decided to make room in the budget because I couldn't handle the migraines anymore.

When I went for my first visit, they took a couple x-rays to see if there was anything going on that could be helped by chiropractic work. They showed me the x-rays, and Wow! My skull was out of alignment front to back and side to side. No wonder I was getting migraines all the time. My neck muscles were all out of whack and causing problems.

After a lot of thought, the only trauma I could come up with that could have caused my head to be so badly out of alignment is the accident I was in in 9th grade. I haven't been in any other accidents since. And when I tried to remember, I've had headaches at least since my early 20's (and probably earlier), and they've gotten progressively worse (becoming migraines) and more frequent as I've gotten older.

I started going to the chiropractor 3 times a week for a couple weeks, then tapered from there. I now go about every 4 weeks. We've tried going longer between visits, but I start getting headaches again and end up having to call in for an earlier visit. I think a lot of that has to do with all the things I do: painting walls and ceilings, building things, sleeping in uncomfortable hotel beds, etc. If I didn't insist on doing these things that mess with my neck muscles I could probably go longer between visits.

Before I started going to the chiropractor I was getting almost daily headaches and more and more of them were migraines. I was also taking more and more painkillers in an effort to deal with them and I was not functioning very well. These days, I rarely get a headache, let alone a migraine, and going to the chiropractor takes care of it if I do get a headache. I'm also off the painkillers, which I shouldn't be taking while on GAPS.

I had an appointment yesterday, and LMS had her first adjustment. She's been complaining about her back needing to be "popped", so we talked to our chiro last time we were there and he said he could do a simple adjustment on her. He did a "pretzel" adjustment on her and got quite a few cracks. She was happy :)

Have you ever been to the chiropractor? Was it helpful?