I’ve fallen and I can’t get up! Lumbar decompression therapy

This is the story of “A REAL MAN”. Growing up I played all the sports I could. Each season had its own sport, spring being baseball, summer water skiing, fall football, winter hockey at the frog pond, and indoor basketball. I played as rough and tough as I could. When I entered the workforce, I chose the male construction and roofing profession. I remember once when we were building a beautiful house on a hill overlooking a raging river. The material for the house was delivered in a transport truck but the truck could not reach the top of the hill. So, I hauled all the material, 13,500 cubic feet, up that hill to the construction site. Day after day until I was done.

Another sport I didn’t mention was boxing. Of course, all these sports, injuries and repetitive workloads took a toll on my body and I started to feel the effects when I hit my thirties. I ignored the signs and symptoms of pain as they were gone within a few days. As he got older, the pain became more intense and lasted longer. I remember a week where I couldn’t get out of bed and had to lie on my back while my wife attended to my every need. I still ignored the pain and tried to live and work through the pain. Remember I told you I’m a real man!

Nobody told me that the first thing that would fail in my body would be the discs between my vertebrae. They were apparently absorbing all the blows and impacts he was receiving. I had no idea that the nervous system that starts in my brain and runs down my spine and ends at my toes would be the cause of all my pain. Apparently, when a disc starts to wear out, pressure can be put directly on my spinal cord and the nerve roots that come out between the bones in my back and reach every part of my body.

My lower back was the first to give out. I had shooting pain in my back and sometimes a sharp pain would shoot down my leg and make me double over. I had to grab the nearest piece of furniture or I would have fallen to my knees. Even then I would grit my teeth and tell my wife that I was fine. Of course she knew better and she was telling me to the point of frustration. She, being the smart woman that she is, had been seeing a chiropractor regularly and was maintaining a healthy lifestyle. She could go shopping, but never fall. Meanwhile, I had a hard time getting from the couch to the dining room table so she could feed me my nutritious organic meals.

Finally, frustrated, she told me that she had had it and that she had to turn me in. She said, “At least find out what the hell is going on!” For her to dress like that meant that I was in deep trouble.

I agreed to have an MRI of my lower back. It turned out that I had a herniated disc and two bulging discs along with disc degeneration. I got a lot out of the report, but the rest was in a foreign language. Knowing he had a problem, I agreed to see his chiropractor, who in simple terms explained that he was, in fact, in big trouble and that I should have listened to my wife years ago.

He also told me that there was a possible solution if I agreed to accept the care. Then she told me that she would have to come to her office 5 days a week for a treatment that would last between 45 minutes and an hour. She pointed out that she couldn’t work at all and that my wife could drive me to her office until I could drive myself.

The first thing I had to face was that I was in fact injured, duh! And that he was in so much pain that he could be considered an invalid. I, on the other hand, had always endured pain and felt that it was indestructible.

I agreed to give it a try, but if I didn’t see any results, I would again hold out until the pain was gone.

The first thing the doctor did was give me the right vitamins to help the healing process. They then put me on a computerized machine that decompressed my spine to allow the discs to be absorbed between the vertebrae. Discs apparently have no blood supply of their own, and decompression allows blood and nutrients to flow to the injured area to help heal it. See, I was already getting smarter and it was just my first day.

On my first treatment I felt relief as the machine gently pulled to relieve the pressure. I took a look of relief. However, the pain did not go away, it only decreased during the treatment. I agreed to come back the next day and then the next and by the time I got to my 15th treatment my pain level had gradually gone down from a 10 out of 10 to about a 4 or 5. I continued with the treatments until the pain was completely gone. and then received a few more to make sure the healing process was taking place.

After completing the treatments, there was a period of two or three months where I had to watch what I was doing and not push myself too hard.

I am now pain free! I can do the things I want to do. I am a man again! Thank you to everyone who helped this stubborn old man realize that he needs help too.