Ouch!

So, somehow I hurt my back this past week.  I don't know what happened.  I just woke up one morning and the whole right side of my back was killing me.  I lived with it for two days and finally decided on Friday to go visit a chiropractor for the first time in my life.  The motivating factor was probably the fact that I've maxxed out my co-insurance and deductible this year with my two surgeries, and I figured I better make the most of my free health care until January 1 comes.  So, off I went.

The first part of the appointment was not that bad.  He asked me a few questions, moved my head around and asked me if that hurt, told me to lift each of my legs one at a time and asked me if that hurt, and then took some x-rays.  Then, it got weird.  He had me come into another room and lay face down on a table.  He placed some kind of electrodes on my back and then left the room for 13 minutes.  I laid there, with my face sunscreen melting into the paper cover over the face hole of the table, while electric pulses aggravated and nagged at my lower back.  It was the weirdest feeling.  He told me that endorphins would be released and that I would start to feel sleepy.  Nope.  I was too busy wondering what this was doing for me?, was anybody in the hall staring and giggling?, is this going to make it worse?

Finally, he comes in and removes those things, and I am taken to another room where he shows me my x-rays.  Apparently, I have a slight curve at the tail bone.  I need to strengthen my abdominal muscles to pull the spine straight up and to stand straighter.  I wonder if this is a new condition developed since my surgery this year because I have gone easy on my abs since then.  I was cut wide open, so of course, it takes time for the muscles to heal.  I have found it feels like I don't have control over the muscles, but that is getting a little better.  The main problem I have now is that I feel like the muscles are somehow shortened.  It feels like I need to be stretched or something.  I tried walking around all day yesterday with a conscious effort to pull the abs up and stand up straight.  By the end of the day, I was exhausted and my "insides" were hurting.  It felt so good last night to put my pj's on and "let it all hang out."  Hello belly.

Anyway, after the x-ray viewing, he took me to another room with another table.  There is one word to describe the experience I had then: manhandling.  Good Lord.  He had me lie in different positions on the table while he yanked, pulled, twisted, pushed.  Being the wimp that I am, I was practically yelling with each yank, pull, twist, and push.  Luckily, there were no other patients in there; I would have scared them all off.  Out of all of those maneuvers, he only got one "pop" out of my back.  I'm a stubborn one.

After that, we were done.  He told me I could use ice packs for 25 minutes every two hours and take some ibuprofen.  He also mentioned that he does acupuncture and has helped four women get pregnant.  The whole time he was talking, I was thinking to myself, "you think I'm going to let you put pins in my body?" and "shouldn't you stick to one thing and do it well?"

I thanked him and left the office, still in the pain that I was in when I went there.  The rest of my day, though, was looooooooooong.  I felt so sleepy all day long and could not wait for the night so I could just go to bed.  I tried taking a nap that afternoon.  Still sleepy.  I tried taking a walk over at the outdoor mall, thinking that a little sunshine might do it.  Still sleepy.  But, I did discover a cute little tea shop that had just opened on Friday.  I tried a cup of organic green tea that I just bought at the cute shop.  Still sleepy.  That night, I was still so sleepy that I went straight to bed, while my poor husband spent his Friday night watching a movie all by his lonesome.

Today, Sunday, I feel much better.  I was still in a little pain yesterday and took ibuprofen.  I don't know if time healed my pain, or anything the chiropractor did, but I'm glad I can walk, bend over, and toss and turn at night without my back screaming at me.  

In other news, Dr. H started my husband and I back on Biaxin.  We were on that right after my surgery, but Dr. H stopped the course when a local doctor here prescribed a different antibiotic when I developed a minor infection in my surgical site.  So, we've been back on Biaxin for 4 or 5 days, and I don't know if it's due to the Biaxin, or the FloraSource probiotic I started taking along with the Biaxin, but I have been a starving, ravenous animal over the last several days.  No matter what I eat, I am constantly hungry.  It has been so annoying that finally last night I gave in, violated my anti-inflammatory diet, and had some greasy yummy pizza.  That helped, but I can't live like that, eating fattening, greasy food all the time.

No, I'm not pregnant, yet.  It is still too early in the cycle to have had a baby implant yet.  I wish I could blame my appetite on pregnancy hormones.  Instead, I'm just a hungry heifer, grazing away.