A little less pain

As if the normal pregnancy symptoms aren't enough, pregnancy has a way of doing stuff to your body to aggravate anything that should have been taken care of years ago, like my back. Last Thursday was my first appointment with my physical therapist (whom I now love, she made it so I could at least drive to her nearly pain-free). Here I thought I had just pulled a hamstring, nope, the sciatic nerve runs down your leg and if you hurt your back, the pain can localize in your leg. I'd heard of this, but I was SO CERTAIN that all I had was a pulled hamstring. Ha!

Anyway, so seven years ago when I originally hurt my back, instead of the dr. I went to telling me to go home and take some ibuprofen, he should have requested an MRI. Yes, I might have a slipped disk. Aggravated by pregnancy and my body loosening up. Since I had issues last time around, but nothing since then, I had figured my back was fine. Nope! When I showed up on Thursday, I was a mess. Several days of pain had lead me to baby my right leg, which meant that not only was my back injured, but I was all out of alignment from walking funny and my right hip was two inches higher than my left. (When the PT asked if I had noticed I just told her that in my day, I tend to look in the mirror for less than 15 seconds, so it would take a whole lot more for me to notice.) Anyway, postpone the back treatment, first I had to fix my hips. Fortunately, this was a simple exercise, which worked! Today I went back to start treating my back. And a little relief.

I know a lot of people will go to a chiropracter for back issues. For me, I prefer physical therapy. For two reasons. The first is that I feel as though I am in command of my healing. I am responsible for, and am able to do SOMETHING and it helps. Plus, once you know the exercises, if things start going a little wonky again, you have the tools to hopefully prevent anything worse. Second: my mother has had back problems my whole life, and has been going to a chiropracter on and off my whole life. Yeah, still has back problems. I've never seen them ever get much better, which could have a lot to do with my mother, but isn't a ringing endorsement. I have problems with any treatment that requires you to keep going back for an indefinite time. Oh, and PT still spends some time on massage, so yay for that! (My husband may give great massages, but he's still not a professional)