Let's get crack-a-lacking

For a while now ....and by a while I mean....since the summer.... I have been waking up at around 4am every morning with shooting pain down my left leg.

Nothing I do at that point does anything to ease the pain.

I have shifted position, stretched...... basically tried to ignore it.  Prayed I could fall asleep again.

It never bothered me any other time of day or night.

Of course I employed "the google" to self-diagnose (and mainly to find out if it was fatal).

I was pretty sure I knew what it was but I couldn't seem to determine, even through fairly dedicated research, what I was doing that made it better or worse.....too much sitting?  To much working out?

I had, by now, determined it did not seem to be an aggressive tumor in my body trying to kill me.

But after hearing for the umpteenth time about the pain in my leg my family pretty much insisted I either do something or shut the hell up about it.

Not being one to shut up....and by now pretty tired of the pain and the wakefulness I took myself off to the Chiropractor.

It has been a while since I saw a Chiro......several years in fact.

It's not that I don't like them, or that I worry every time they touch me they may paralyze me..... it's just that the whole deal seems a little "out there" at times.

She is a tiny but mighty Dr and everything she says makes sense to me it's just hard to buy that I can be in such terrible shape (thanks to her scans and analysis) and yet be functioning so well (except maybe at 4am for the last 6 months).....  She tells me my neck, my upper back, my pelvis and TA DA my sciatic nerve are a mess.... the latter confirming my google-assisted self-diagnosis!

She tells me its great I am working out but I need to manage my stress better, my nerves need to be freed from the iron grip my muscles have on them and my bones.

She talks about sleep and vitamins - she reminds me my body is a system and each part is connected to the other and when one is as jumbled up as I am, as misaligned in my whole spine, then other body systems will suffer.

I get it.  I get it.........theoretically.

And then we move to the table of torture  treatment table.  Where she proceeds to pound on me in all the most sore places I have.

I do a lot of wincing and "ouching" and grunting in pain and even though I can't see her I know she is shaking her head at the mess I have presented her with.

I do wonder in those moments how this much crunching me and thunking on me is going to make anything feel better.

And I wiggle my toes after every crack my neck or spine makes just to make sure nothing important has been severed!

She is soothing but serious about my need to commit to my health,   I hear her.  Funny how pain can make you quite attentive to information you may be skeptical about?

I continue to attend my twice weekly "adjustment" sessions and while my body is in need of several more sessions, my attitude towards my Chiropractor has been truly readjusted to one of gratitude for her skills.

And for sleeping right through 4am thanks to a realigned pelvis and a happy sciatic nerve!