Some types of neck/back pain are cyclical. The injury causes inflammation which causes tissue to swell that in turn can cause pain. More pain can end up causing more swelling, blah blah blah.
The first time I hurt my back I went to an MD. When I hurt my back I heard it pop.
Felt it pop too.
Figured this was going to hurt.
It did but it took a week to cycle up enough to make me go to a Doc In The Box. I hurt the back on a Saturday. All week long the pain got worse and worse until the on Sunday morning, a week later, I woke up in great pain and went to the DITB. They did Xrays, told me to take Ibuprofin and go see my doc on Monday.
I took the meds and was feeling pretty good Sunday night. Decided a nice hot shower would be great.
I did not know it at the time but heat can cause inflammation and kick up the pain. I took the shower at 10:00pm ish. I was at the ER at 2:00am. They told me to take Ibuprofin and see my doc. Ah. Thanks.
Got to a sports med doc 6-8 hours later who pumped me full of pain killer, muscle relaxer, steroids, and other drugs. I was out of work for a week a drooling lump on the couch. My manager at work was talking about putting me on disability.
But the treatment worked in that I was able to get back to work. The pain was greatly reduced.
The problem was I was not healed.
A few months later I over did it building a retaining wall foundation over the weekend.
I felt the pain building back up. I could tell that if something was not done I would be in the ER again over the weekend.
The wifey had been nagging me to go to a Chiropractor. My family has had quite a few problems with bad MD's. Chiropractors really got my skeptical up. :laughing: But I was between a rock and a hard place and feeling it, so I went to her Bone Cracker on a Friday.
By the time I see him the pain is really up there. I was in bad shape. He did an exam. Take more Xrays. The Bone Cracker sits me down and tells me to come back on Monday and we will start treatment.
Over the weekend I am to take Ibuprofin and to ice my shoulder every hour for seven minutes for as many hours as I can. I did not say anything but the look on my face must have said something. I was thinking there was no way I am getting through the weekend. He gave me his card and told me to call if the pain got bad...
So I went home and did what I was told. Ice and Ibuprofin lowered the pain greatly. I actually could function without being turned into a drug addled mess. Eventually the Bone Cracker healed my back.
Then we had a car accident and I got to repeat the exercise.
But I am lucky in that I have not needed surgery and the Bone Cracker treatment worked. Others are not so lucky.
But I did learn that simple over the counter drugs and ice can do wonders. The ice and drugs lowers the inflammation and thus the pain which gives you a chance to heal.
After the accident I even did accupuncture which worked. Do not understand it but it removed the pain. Frankly, my pain was so bad that if someone told me to run around the house, counter clockwise at midnight, under a full moon, singing It is a Small World to remove the pain I would have done it.
Since the MD route did not help, try a Bone Cracker. The guy we go to now, our first Bone Cracker moved to be closer to his family, uses this little itty bitty gun like thing to do adjustments. Not traumatic at all though he does do the other techniques that really can crack bones. The first Bone Cracker was very physical which did not hurt but having your back/neck cracked like he did was a bit odd. Never really liked it but it worked. :laughing:
The wifey's shoulder was really messed up in the car accident. She went to the ER. She went to the Bone Cracker who pretty quickly realized she was not getting better and told her to get to an Ortho. The Ortho doc had her do close to a year of PT which did not help at all.
He then wanted to just shoot her full of steroids. At that point we figured he had reached his level of competence and we did what we should have done at first, which was go to one of the local teaching universities.
We ended up with an Ortho doc at Duke. After two surgeries, PT, and accupuncture the wifey is almost back to where she was prior to the accident that was almost three years ago.
The hard part in all of this is finding good MDs, Bone Crackers and PT people....
Later,
Dan
