ow

My back is an ongoing problem.

All my stress goes straight to the area around and between my shoulders. Seriously, masseuses are always SHOCKED at the tension I carry there, my shoulders and upper back are rock hard. (Like, if my ass had that kind of muscle definition, I'd wear a thong, full time, in public, even in winter.) I am constantly reminding myself to pull my shoulders DOWN, back and DOWN, but they always pop back up right to my ears within minutes, if not seconds. Rotating my shoulders is a symphony of bones and ligaments cracking and popping. I am NOISY.

Add to this that I have a particularly LONG back (I'm almost 6 feet tall and my inseam is barely 32 inches...all my height is in my back) and that I have a tendency towards a sway back (bootylicious, yo) which can go out of whack pretty easily and pretty much anyone would acknowledge that I am a chiropractors wet dream.

Sometimes the upper and lower back have a competition to see who can hurt most. Right now, they are neck and neck, but the lower back is winning slightly as it is trying to throw itself out. I'm used to the upper back hurting, but the lower can be a real bitch when it wants.

Problem is, I have a pretty big fear of chiropractors as my mom was pretty much wrecked by one when I was a kid. One too many snaps of her neck, badly done, and she was in for major surgery and a lifelong legacy of pain and discomfort. But yoga, while extremely helpful (for her and for me), can only go so far and sometimes I just...need...someone...to...pop...my back. I can FEEL the bones needing a slight wrench back to where they belong. It becomes an obsession and I have to just suck it up and go to the chiro.

Which I did today. Before I go, I have to take a 'mothers little helper', in this case, a vicodine as the pain was also pretty fierce. My lower back is trying to go out, my upper back is totally ganked, and it just damned hurts. The vicodine not only helps the pain but also puts me in a nice fugue of contentment and quashes the chiro-panic. (I have a small stash, maybe 6?, left from a previous dentist appointment in the States, that I hoard for emergencies like this.)

I arrived at the chiro's ready for the inevitable, but I still have a minor moment of panic when he does my lower back as I am so afraid of fucking it up beyond all help. (Once you've thrown out your lower back and been flat out on the floor for three days, you don't want to repeat the experience.) My upper back, hey no problem, crack the shit out of that bitch, it wants it bad...pop it pop it POP IT BITCH!

The Norwegian chiropractors are very nice and professional. They take x rays and study the spine before they even touch you. They are always surprised just how tight my back is and tut-tut over how long I have let it go. I tell them I do yoga when I can and that my coming to them is an emergency thing. I also explain about my mom. (To this day, I would NEVER let a chiro touch my neck, no way no how.) It usually takes me two or three visits in a week to get back to a place where I don't want to moan all the time. They always tell me to take a walk 'in the woods' after an adjustment. Typisk Norsk.

Yoga starts again in February. I hope I can hold out until then after the chiro adjustments.