Showing posts with label physical therapy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label physical therapy. Show all posts

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Ground it out, you energy vacuum! Part I

10/14/10 Edit: gah, mentioned a link then forgot to put it in. It's there now. :P
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Take it or Leave it Category: Take what's useful...you know the tune. :)

One of the things we chronically ill folks will say in a heartbeat is that we will do nearly anything to treat our situations and get well. Of course, a generalization that broad would need clarification and individualization after all (no Santaria or Palo Mayombe, Briyumba or Kimbisa or anything in that category for me, for example). But if we can find something relatively safe with a reasonably good chance of working, we'll take a look at it.

Once I was able to concentrate solely on getting well, I jumped into healing with both feet.  I couldn't work full time at a paying job so I determined that I would work full-time every day at getting well.  I asked every doctor I had for all the recommendations that he or she could think of.  I work closely with all my doctors and wouldn't dream of doing anything that they would disapprove.

I pondered and prayed, and several ideas presented themselves.  I consulted an exquisite crystal healer and it changed the course of my healing.  It became apparent that I had problems with my energy bodies.  While prescription medicines and a couple of supplements did their things, I began work on my energy bodies.

I define my energy body as my internal nerve structures, spine, any and all nervous systems; and my external energy body such as aura, chakra system, and the weird energy fields I have no expectations that I'll ever fully understand in this life.

Donna Eden has developed a system by which people can use their hands to manipulate their own body energies (or the energy fields of others).  I approve of her system.  First, her system gets my thumbs-up because it teaches people to use their own energy and does not utilize the energy of anything or anyone else.  It does not resemble such systems as Reiki which call on "universal energy" which, in fact, does not exist.  But that part is for another column.  Second, her system WORKS.  Third, her system is easy to understand and remember.

So after working with her system and home rock medicine (wouldn't ever consider what I do as real crystal healing), I felt better but not sufficiently better.  I began homebrewing mead and medicinal beers, foraging my semi-wild backyard for healing herbs, and then I fell and broke my neck.

Yep, I broke a bone spur off my C-5 vertebra.  Come to learn that I've got spine problems from my C-1 all the way to my tailbone.  So, I added get spinal work done to my list.

I wasn't getting good results from chiropractics.  Every adjustment seemed to trigger every symptom I had so I gave it up.

Honestly, at that point I was stumped.  I made an appointment with Pam Oslie, a psychic in California.  She had very specific--Edgar Cayce-type specific--recommendations for work on my spine that I needed.  She cautioned me that I might need rods on either side of my spine if I couldn't get the problems fixed (yeah, I've got scoliosis too).  Anybody coming at my back with a knife will get what I'd give anybody attempting to stab me in the back.  So, just don't go there, docs.

Anyway, now I'm getting superb physical therapy treatments on my neck and back according to her recommendations--very good results!!  The treatments have tremendously improved the flow of nerve impulses throughout my entire self.  If the physical therapist I were seeing had less education and experience, I don't believe he would have been able to locate the problems solely by touch.  They don't show up on x-rays or MRI but do show up--ok, get this--Pam Oslie saw them and the PT can feel them.  The doctoral student who conducted the evaluation caught every single nuance in my (lack of) balance and the PT will help with it as well.

One thing that continues to trouble me is utterly perplexing sensitivity.  I'm not sensitive - I am the sensor itself.  I'm not a careful observer - I'm the Princess from The Princess and the Pea.  That was one of my late father's nicknames for me.  He'd say, "All right, Princess and the Pea..."

I can't innumerate everything I've done to combat this, fix it, reduce it, overcome it, bury it, obliterate it, embrace it, integrate it, dilute it, give it away--you cannot imagine what I've done to address this.  I have had absolutely no success at all, none, zero, zilch.  I am becoming more and more sensitive every day.

I've carefully read and learned about my astrological natal chart as part of my healing work - hell, I've about gotten all that's out there of pharmaceuticals and Western medicine so I plunged into complementary and more esoteric, metaphysical work.

In my astrological chart, I found the reflection of my sensitivity which was comforting in a way.  It said to me that for the most part, I had not caused it; however, it is utterly part of who I am and cannot be separated from my self-ness.  According to chart progressions, I can expect it to get worse, or to say it another way, I will become more intuitive, sensitive, aware of energy, psychic, and so on as I finish up the second half of my life.  My energetic vacuum will self-upgrade to industrial strength in about 10 years.  It's bad now.  I cannot picture what it will be like in 10 years.

Before I spoke with Pam Oslie, I had read her book Life Colors: What the Colors in Your Aura Reveal and taken her online "aura color" test.  I had done my little thing and determined that she would be a good fit for what I needed to know.

She told me that, in her system, I was a "life color" that she doesn't see often:  Crystal.  Well, "Crystal" was tied for second place on the online test I took but once she described "Crystals", I was convinced that she was right.

Crystals, one might say, are no one until we're with someone.  We don't have much energetic personality so to speak until we come in contact with another person.  When we do, we suck energy from the other person and fill our aura out with the "color" of the other person.

When I'm with a "yellow", I'm yellow.  When I'm with a "blue", I'm blue.  On page 155 in her book, Pam Oslie says

Crystal is a rare Life Color.  Crystals have clear auras and are known as the "aura chameleons".  Like chameleons, their auras will change colors to match those of the people they are connecting with at the time.  They then take on the characteristics, emotions, and thoughts of that color.  Consequently, in power Crystals can get along quite well with almost anyone.  Yellows, for example, feel they can relate to Crystals who, when they are with them, act and think like Yellow.  Later when the same Crystals spend time with Sensitive Tans, the Tans feel as if they have found kindred spirits.  However, Crystals' inconsistencies can also confuse people.  One minute Crystals think and behave like Greens.  Later they can act like Blue.  The more they bond with others, the more their personalities change.  Because Crystals tend to absorb the colors of other people's auras, people can, at times, feel an energy drain when they are in the presence of Crystals.

Yep, she's got that right.  I'm a pure energy sucker and until I started working on healing my energy body, I wasn't even aware of the extent to which I was vampiring others.  If I get low on energy, I'll start looking for energy wherever I can find it.  Here I discuss the results of a test the chiropractor ran on the energy levels of my two daughters and myself, same day, same technician.  It seems I run half a tank low on a regular basis.

She doesn't have as much about Crystals in her book as she does other Life Colors.  Her best recommendation for my Crystal problems is to immerse myself outside in Nature which, to me, is only the most wonderful thing next to sex... :D

Next, more on my Crystalline self and the various Nature things I'm doing to solve my issues.  I've gotten a piece of more specific, concrete advice to chew on so to speak.

So, I'm consulting psychics and learning to read astrological charts, working with rocks and herbs and foraging wild plants from my backyard along with taking prescription medicine and going through physical therapy.

Still think there's anything I won't do to get well?  Within reason, of course?  :)




Copyright 2008-2010 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. Nothing in the above article is remunerated content. Remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Feeling so good about feeling so bad :)

Physical therapy resembles manure. Yeah it stinks but once it's worked in well, it's the best thing your garden soil can get.

I feel like I've been pooped-upon, in the sense of the above statement. XD

I'm so sore.  I can feel muscles that I imagine haven't been moved in a couple of decades.  Again I got manual traction.  He also did something he called "upper cervical spine release" where he actually isolated the first three cervical vertebrae and shifted and manipulated around each one separately.

It felt so good that I'm afraid I may have sounded...orgasmic.  XD

What he did last TENSday set off many of my symptoms.  Stupid stress over the worst sorts of human behavior exacerbated the situation and I had a terrible weekend.  I was upfront with him about how bad I felt.  He apparently understood what I meant. 

When we finished, I felt as much better as I had felt bad when I arrived.  I've got some exercises to do and a couple of additional ideas for improving recovery between sessions.

In looking over his educational achievements briefly listed on his business card, he appears to my uneducated eye to be about 2 years from an osteopathic doctor degree.  In another state of this Union, he would probably qualify for licensing that Alabama simply doesn't have.  He speaks with authority and his manipulations of my spine have been precise and effective.  The guy's in the right business.  He knows what he's doing.

In one pocket I had put a tumbled blue calcite and in the other pocket, a double-terminated/ET lithium quartz.  Vibrationally, calcite helps "break up" old systems that are no longer working (useful constipation treatment is clear calcite in water, or as a formal gemstone remedy).  Lithium quartz I believe will help me with my recently-developed doctor phobia.  Today, the Moon is in Taurus which rules the neck.  Things came together to make today a very, very good neck day.

Ice tonight and tomorrow, my bff Scalene the TENS unit.  Onward and upward! 


Copyright 2008-2010 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. Nothing in the above article is remunerated content. Remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Sharethis: Empi Products, Makers of my TENS Unit I named Scalene

Just a note before I go and implode: Don't go overboard with the TENS. I've now burned a spot on my upper back near my neck. It was underneath one of the electrodes.

I absolutely will pay closer attention to how long I keep that thing running in the future.



Empi Products
Source: empi.com

 
Parin Stormlaughter sent this using ShareThis.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Oh Scalene! Whatcha doin' to me, Scalene? :)

Well! We might be excavating deeply enough to find some real therapy to go along with the drugs to work on my Meniere's Syndrome and Migraine Disease.

At the moment, I'm iced up and doing some music therapy for the pain in my head. The pain's not pounding yet but it will be in a little while. That's what physical therapy on a neck can do!  Taking meds now and I'll be off for rocks shortly.  Chris told me to expect all this exacerbation of symptoms.

Many of my Meniere's buds and I have a thin strip of painful muscles down the sides of our necks on the side (or sides) in which we also have Meniere's. My right ear is currently diagnosed with Meniere's. The painful strip running down the right side of my neck has made me weep from the relentless intensity. Neither ice nor heat relieve the pain nor even mitigate it. With the Migraine preventative medication regimen I'm on, nearly all pain in my entire body responds to either Advil, Aleve, or if it's Migraine, to Indocin (occasionally I'll need my really big pain guns but not often).  They'll relieve the thin strip of pain but not the tenderness when I touch it.

Today, physical therapist Chris got to work on my neck.  He worked and worked and suddenly SHAZAAM.  He touched that painful strip (which had not been actively hurting and isn't hurting now) and I nearly came off the table from the hurt.  I felt it inside my right Meniere's ear HARD.

[As an aside, I felt bad for the other people in the clinic who heard my *ack*.  Hope they didn't wonder if Chris was throttling me or something.  XD]

He told me he had touched a group of 3 muscles called the scalenes.  Scalene muscles are innervated by one or more of the very vertebrae in my neck that I know are in trouble:  C-2 through C-7.  Chris told me that if we had time he'd get the anatomy book out and we'd look at it but dang, he spent two hours on my backbone as it was and I was a steak tender at the end.  I told him I'd look it up on the internet.

Scalene muscles seem to be associated with a repetitive injury called thoracic outlet syndrome (TOS).  TOS causes, among other things, numbness across the tops of your arms down to the ends of certain fingers.  That's a sensation I have during some migraine attacks, usually during prodrome.  Won't matter if I have TOS if they can just fix it.  Not looking for yet another diagnosis.  All I want is to get well.

Anyway, Chris worked like a field medic:  he noted how bad he was hurting me but it didn't stop him.  He got all up and under my C-1, also called the Atlas bone, but otherwise didn't do much near my vertebrae at all.  He concentrated on neck muscles.

Last thing he did on my neck was something he called "manual traction".  MY WORD I'd hire that man to do that to me every day.  I told him I felt an inch taller but he said he hoped he'd not stretched me but half that.  XD

We took a break and he showed me how to use my TENS unit.  E-stim which clinics use for pain relief is very good for me so I'm pumped about trying this for pain.  Chris gave me free reign to use it wherever I needed it.  COOL BEANIES.

[Another aside:  TENS units are not designed for the electrodes to be used directly on the head.  There is a company that makes an over-the-counter mini-TENS for headache but otherwise, don't anybody use TENS electrodes directly on your head unless your doc or PT tells you to and even then, have them explain why your prescription durable medical equipment TENS unit is safe enough for your head, why not?]

I have enough pain in other places that I could burn up the batteries in short order, I imagine.  And, after trying a nice little TENS secret that the owner of the clinic uses for vestibular problems, we discovered last week that it temporarily stopped the migraine pain that last week's work triggered.  I'm telling you, Dr. Breathtakingly Arrogant is onto something.  He spotted my Meniere's (which is a cochlear condition sometimes called cochlear hydrops) and told me that many of his tough cases have cochlear issues as well as migraine.

I had a rare opportunity, during my first visit to clinic, to be evaluated by a physical therapy doctoral student.  She was utterly amazing.  Never have I had a more thorough spinal and balance evaluation, ever.  She was about to recommend a...walker...but said that if I was doing ok and not falling with my cane, it would do.  Elder Assistant Offspring told me that if it ever did come down to a walker, she and my other daughter would pimp it out for me.  My only request was for headlights.  LOLOL

Anyway, that's a status report on the state of my head.  I've decided to name my TENS unit "Scalene".   After while Scalene and I gonna hook up and go cruisin'.  :)

Some links below to information about scalene muscles if you're just interested.


Scalene muscles drawing
Scalene muscles
Source: en.academic.ru

 
Parin Stormlaughter sent this using ShareThis.


Head and Neck Musculature, innervation of scalene muscles
PT Central - Muscles of the Head
Source: ptcentral.com

 
Parin Stormlaughter sent this using ShareThis.


Gray's Superficial Cervical Plexus (purple-taupe)
File:Gray784.png - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Source: en.wikipedia.org

 
Parin Stormlaughter sent this using ShareThis.

Copyright 2008-2010 Parin Stormlaughter, Sparkling With Crystals, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. I do not grant reprint permission. Use the ShareThis link if you want to share this. Nothing in the above article is remunerated content. Remember that if my work gets published anywhere else without proper citation, I'll pray for you. And perhaps take legal action. Rest assured, prayer is far more effective.