Yeah, yeah, yeah….it’s been a while. Y’all can quitcherbitchin….I’m back. I don’t know if all Master’s degrees require the reading and writing that a M.A. in History does, but for the last couple years, the furthest thing from my mind was reading or writing anything I didn’t absolutely HAVE to. That’s behind me now. All the boxes have been checked.
NOW…If you know me, you know I don’t tell anyone how to live their life. If you’re happy and you’re not hurting anyone else in order to be happy…good on ya. I will, however, relay information that I’ve come across if I think it will be beneficial to the three people who actually read this blog. What you do with that information is on you.
HEY….if you’ve got a chronic ache or pain that you’re dealing with, this might be worth the read. Pay attention, dammit.
BACKSTORY:
I moved all the furniture from North Carolina to Kentucky when I bought this farm. Every week I’d load an enclosed trailer in NC and on the weekends, I’d drive the 18-hour round trip and unload everything into the house in KY.
Whether it was all the heavy lifting or the hours on the road, my lower back started to give me fits. I’ve got a pretty high tolerance to pain…and it really wasn’t pain….it was just a constant state of discomfort. So much so that I sought medical attention.
The VA sent me through the X-ray and MRI journey and in the end, they sent me to civilian chiropractor because they didn’t have one on staff at the VA Medical Center at the time. SO….Bonecrusher looks the information over and explains that it’s not my lower back, it’s my hip. Actually, my pelvis. My sacroiliac joint is out of place. He has me lay on a table, twists me up in some contortion that has to be found somewhere in the Kama Sutra, and then throws his bodyweight against my hip repeatedly. Crunch, crunch, crunch….POP. It’s back in place and after a day of learning to walk again, it’s great. BUT…every few months I’d have to go back and have it popped back into place.
That went on for seven years. Every couple months I’d have to call Bonecrusher and have him twist me up and bounce on me until my hip went back into place. I just assumed that it was something I was going to have to deal with for the rest of my life…ya know…one of those old age things.
2023:
At my January “check-up” at the VA, Doc tells me that they’ve got a chiropractor on staff now and he’d like me to start seeing him. We scheduled an appointment for a couple months out and he sent me out for fresh X-rays.
About six months ago, I had my first appointment with the VA’s Bonecrusher. I’m sitting in the waiting room when the receptionist calls me back and tells me what treatment room to go to. I knock on the door and I’m told to come in.
This mid-to-late 60’s guy…who has never met me…has my X-rays up on a big computer monitor and turns and looks at me as I come through the door…and chuckles.
“Something funny, Doc?”
He turns in his chair and spends the next few minutes telling me how the discomfort comes and goes, how I struggle to get out of a chair, how the first three steps I take look like a crippled old man, how I lay when I sleep at night, that I sleep in a recliner most nights because I can’t get comfortable in a bed, my normal workout routine, the issues I’m having with my feet and ankles…he was SPOT ON with everything he was telling me about me from looking at my X-rays and watching me walk through the door. Then he asked me why and when did I stop working legs in the gym. This was kind of the surreal, scary type of psychic stuff you read about. He pegged everything about me.
Well…the answer was nearly 20 years ago because my knees went to hell and the orthopedic surgeon at Camp Lejeune told me stop.
SO….the VA Bonecrusher shakes his head and chuckles again. He then explains to me that my quads are still strong because they’re used day to day, but my glutes and hams are shrinking because I’m not toting a ruck on my back for days at a time and I’m not working legs in the gym anymore. My quads are keeping constant tension on the front of my hips and shrinking glutes and hams are not keeping tension on the back.
NOW…from the perspective of Mechanical Engineering, he made perfect sense. My sacroiliac was being pulled forward and out of joint because the counter-tension from the rear had been loosened up allowing the quad to over-torque the joint. It’s tug-o-war for all intents and purposes and the quad is winning.
But, I’m far from sedentary. I’m working outside every day, mowing, cutting/splitting/stacking firewood, turning wrenches on something. I’m on the go and in the gym all the time. Surely this didn’t apply to me.
Doc continues…and made more sense to me than any other medical professional ever has. According to him…and I believe him now…our bodies are built in our late 20’s to mid-30’s. That’s our final growth spurt…our actual “formative years”. When we stop doing the things that we were doing through those years and the muscles we’d developed start to shrink it causes structural problems. If those structural problems are in your hips, it throws the whole balance of the skeletal structure out of whack. Your feet, ankles, back and knees take the brunt of that.
His prescription for me: Start working legs again.
Well…I had to ask. “What about all the cartilage damage in the knees?”
At that point this man…who has only known me for a few minutes…who is half my size and not nearly as well trained as I….this man looks me dead in the eyes and says “Hey, Dumbass…we can replace your knees, we can’t replace your pelvis”.
VA Bonecrusher is now my favorite Doc on the planet.
I worked “Leg Day” back into the routine the very next day. Thrashing muscle groups that had been neglected for nearly two decades is rough at the start, but it’s a “good pain”. Overall, the results have been astounding. Adding legs back into the routine straightened out a lot of things that I hadn’t even noticed. My core is stronger than it’s been in years. My lower back is stronger than it’s been in years. And guess what…my knees even feel a little better.
TO DATE:
I go back and see the Chiropractor at the VA every six weeks or so. Busting up the arthritis in my neck and back always feels good. BUT…we haven’t had to put my hip back in place since that first visit.
NOW…Don’t call me bitchin’ next week because you can’t get your ass out of bed. I am NOT telling you to start doing squats and leg curls. What I was doing in my “formative years” and what you were doing is more than likely very, VERY different. But if you were carrying your own groceries back then and having them delivered to your door now, that’s something to consider. Were you dancing every Friday and Saturday night? If you used to mow with a push mower and now sit on a riding mower…If you were picking up kids…or cinderblocks…or firewood…every day of those formative years and now the kids are grown and you’ve got a desk job where you’re sedentary all day…the muscles you built simply living life and doing your job are slowly shrinking and could very well be causing a lot of the aches and pains your doctors give you pills to alleviate.
Like I said…I don’t tell anyone how to live their lives. But if you’re around my age and feel like your body is starting to fall apart…well…it kinda is. It’s not too late to reverse the cycle to some degree. Oh…and if you’re younger and thinking that it’ll never happen to you…it comes faster than you think…you may want to start preparing now.
HEY…I’m just relaying what I’ve learned. What you do with that information is up to you.
Light’s Out…