Hacking the Body
Oct. 31st, 2009 11:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deirdreSo I had my initial visit with a new chiropractor yesterday, Elizabeth DeBruin. I'd met her a while ago at a convention, and it just took me this long to get around to an appointment as I was working on other things.
I shouldn't have waited.
I described my symptoms, my x-rays (as I didn't have copies in hand), and showed the picture of how I'm standing on my feet these days.
Chiropractors have the coolest tests, and she ran me through some, which I did with no particular expectations.
One of them was putting one foot a couple feet in front of the other, Egyptian-art style, closing my eyes, and seeing how I balanced. I already knew that my balance in one direction would be worse than the other as I regularly do a modified version of this stance in yoga (as the entry to Parsvottanasana) and it is one of the asanas I do most frequently.
Then she had me do other things, re-checking with that same pose, and essentially was able to turn on and off my ability to balance in that position. As a QA engineer, repro test cases are awesome.
Essentially, my left side was weaker than my left, so my right side tensed up to be able to do some of the work of the left, and the lower-back tension eventually got to the point where it was partially blocking my femoral nerve on the right side, leading to the weakness and periodic numbness on the right. Because of the weakness on the right, that side tends to be a bit spastic, leading to the balance issue.
This is a very short history of the last 30 years. I first noticed the weak left side during yoga in the 70s, extreme lower-back tension in 1986, the weakness in 1999 (but it was treated as a conditioning issue, which it is not).
Anyhow, I feel like she really understands what's actually wrong with me, and therefore we have a start of a treatment plan.
No supplement upsells, no fancy electronic gadgets, just good diagnostics and care.
I shouldn't have waited.
I described my symptoms, my x-rays (as I didn't have copies in hand), and showed the picture of how I'm standing on my feet these days.
Chiropractors have the coolest tests, and she ran me through some, which I did with no particular expectations.
One of them was putting one foot a couple feet in front of the other, Egyptian-art style, closing my eyes, and seeing how I balanced. I already knew that my balance in one direction would be worse than the other as I regularly do a modified version of this stance in yoga (as the entry to Parsvottanasana) and it is one of the asanas I do most frequently.
Then she had me do other things, re-checking with that same pose, and essentially was able to turn on and off my ability to balance in that position. As a QA engineer, repro test cases are awesome.
Essentially, my left side was weaker than my left, so my right side tensed up to be able to do some of the work of the left, and the lower-back tension eventually got to the point where it was partially blocking my femoral nerve on the right side, leading to the weakness and periodic numbness on the right. Because of the weakness on the right, that side tends to be a bit spastic, leading to the balance issue.
This is a very short history of the last 30 years. I first noticed the weak left side during yoga in the 70s, extreme lower-back tension in 1986, the weakness in 1999 (but it was treated as a conditioning issue, which it is not).
Anyhow, I feel like she really understands what's actually wrong with me, and therefore we have a start of a treatment plan.
No supplement upsells, no fancy electronic gadgets, just good diagnostics and care.