Neck/Back Treatments

This has been a crazy week - sick 'kids' and trying to adjust my daily life to include my 1-1/2 hour  'exercises' twice a day. Liz has been my greatest help - cooking dinners, doing dishes, driving a sick Frank to the doctors twice and to get his meds, while I go to appointments. She's also been encouraging and cheerful!

I finally have some time to write about my spine treatments, and I'll start with my various spine problems. As I said in my initial email I have bulging discs in my neck, lower back and at least one degenerative disc in my middle back. On top of this, my neck is bent and deeply curved (forward neck syndrome) causing my lower back to compensate by becoming very straight and inflexible - it should curve towards the belly button. The curved neck further pinches the bulged discs which pinch the nerves. So, it all has to be treated at the same time. These pinched nerves cause all kinds of symptoms and I think they're worse than the treatments! I've had several injuries over the years which have contributed to the initial severe whiplash I had gotten (in Tahiti!) when I was in my early 20's.

I am being treated at Disc and Spine Northwest in CDA,  and part of my treatments include using the decompression machine there, chiropractic treatments, cold laser treatments, good nutrition, lots of exercises, traction, weights and so on. You can look this all up at: www.discandspinenorthwest.com, and also at one of the sites of the systems they use: www.pettibonsystem.com. My treatments and exercise take about 4 hours a day, and are designed to fix and retrain/re-mold my spine.

I have to avoid anything that brings my head/neck forward and down for extended times - which is everything I do: cross stitch, embroidery, computer work, painting, reading, etc. Very difficult!

It's hard work and painful - but I am determined (and thankfully my family is helping me!) to keep at it. I will undergo these treatments for 4 - 5 more weeks, then the exercises for 6 more months, then once a day for the rest of my life.

Bob took more pictures of our 'creek' and the 'farm' before it started snowing again, and he'll upload them later today.

Thank you for your prayers and good thoughts!

xox