When I was in my early 20s, I worked for a few doctors offices and I always scoffed at people who would come in complaining of back pain looking for medication. Not ever really truly experiencing back pain for myself, I unfortunately suspected that these people might be seeking medication to feed their addiction. At the time the now epidemic opioid problem due to doctors over prescribing and wrongly prescribing was just in its infancy. I was definitely prejudging these people. Then everything changed for me. When I was 24, I went to the Bahamas with my then boyfriend. One day while hanging out on the beach, we decided to rent jet skis. We were coming across the waves really fast jumping them racing and my JetSki jumped and came down in between two waves and smacked hard and my butt smacked really hard into the seat. When this happened I felt a weird pop and pain in my lower back. I kind of tried to wiggle the feeling off and I forgot about it after a couple minutes. Later on that night getting ready to go out to dinner, I was in the shower and I noticed that I couldn’t bend down to shave my legs. My back was killing me and I legitimately couldn’t reach my toes even though my foot was resting up on the side of the tub. I struggle through the rest of the trip and when I came back I made an appointment with a chiropractor. He took some x-rays and told me that I had severely sprained my lower spine. I was a bartender at the time and didn’t have any health insurance so going to a doctor and getting a prescription for pain medication was not really within my budget, nor some thing that I really wanted to do as I had watched numerous friends growing up becoming addicted to pain medication. I set up a monthly payment plan with my chiropractor and went three times a week. Every time that I went I experience relief right afterwards but within a few hours the pain would come back. Working as a bartender you don’t really realize how many micro movements you make with using your back, bending over slightly to grab a beer out of the cooler, picking up boxes of beer to restock and cleaning up the bar at the end of the night. Weeks went by and it was the same problem, I would go to the chiropractor get a few hours of relief and then be back to what I felt was square one. I spoke to my chiropractor about what was going on and he suggested that I go see a massage therapist the same day that I had my chiropractic adjustment. He said that the muscles around my spine were spasming and pulling the adjustment back out of alignment. I made weekly appointments and continued to follow up my chiropractic visits with massage a local massage therapist. My massage sessions focused on my lower back, glutes and hamstrings. I was amazed of the success that the tandem therapy had on my back. I felt better for longer periods of time before slipping back into pain. Eventually my back got better using this chiropractic-massage therapist approach. I was able to get back into the gym, back to tending bar and back to living my life pain free.
I don’t think people truly appreciate the relationship between muscles and bones and how when either or both are out of wack it affects your health, well-being and daily quality of life. I truly think that my back would not have gotten better as fast or would have turned into a chronic problem if I hadn’t had both my chiropractor and massage therapist in my corner. This experience not only changed the way I looked at chiropractic and massage therapy and the way I would rehabilitate my body for future maintenance and injuries but it also was a huge factor in my deciding to eventually getting into the massage therapy field. I previously thought massage therapy was for relaxation or to soothe sore muscles after a hard workout, it is but it’s sooooo much more!!
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