It's official, I've given up on the rest thing for my back. Its been 10 days now and it still hurts. I thought I was better last Friday but I was wrong and after shoveling the snow on Monday I'm back to where I started, which is in a great deal of pain. This morning I finally gave in and made an appointment with a Chiropractor, for 10am which is in 25 minutes. I hope she is not a quack. I am looking forward to eating my lunch pain free today. The YMCA is after me big time regarding the Y-try and because of my condition I have been less than helpful. Not too good for the Chair of the event. Well its off to Dr. Cracker. Ill let you know how it goes. Its funny how you take your health for granted untill your not healthy.  l8ter

In 1987 I hurt my lower back playing baseball. It was so bad I had old mans syndrome or at least that’s what I call it. This is when you are unable to stand up straight without a great deal of pain. It hurt so much that I went to emergency, but all they suggested was physiotherapy for 6 weeks, which did nothing to relieve my discomfort. A coworker suggested I visit his chiropractor and since I had nothing to loose I booked an appointment. The treatment consisted of some deep heat ointment and electronic massage pads placed on the affected area for about 30 minutes. This loosened all the muscles and was quite a relief in itself but the best was yet to come. The chiropractor came in, a petite woman in her 40's and proceeded to perform a lower back adjustment on me. It took about 15 seconds and the pain was gone instantly! I now knew what a good chiropractor was capable of and was thankful for the knowledge. My next flair up happened several years later while lifting some furniture. It was in the same spot with the same chronic, intense pain. The woman that I was working for at the time offered to take me to her chiropractor as she was suffering from some type of neck pain and was going anyway. Remembering my last wonderful experience I quickly agreed. We drove to a small office in Chinatown and I was introduced to Dr. Wong (or something like that) He had a very similar method of muscle relaxation but also quite different, let me explain. Instead of Deep Heat ointment he used some sort of hot ember type thing. He would put it on a spot on my back for several seconds and just when it would start to burn me he would move it to a new location. This process went on for about 10 minutes and it sucked big time! It felt like someone was randomly burning me with a smoke. Next instead of using the gentle pulsing of electric massage pads he chose to use a jumbo vibrator. The best thing about it was he did not stick it up my ass! After several minutes with the wand he decided I was relaxed enough to attempt an adjustment, so just like before he tried to crack my lower back, back into place. After numerous attempts he was unsuccessful. I actually left in more pain than I went in with. I did learn that the body will repair itself with time, and in about a week I was almost back to normal. My next experience with a chiropractor occurred in 1996’ish as my brother-in-law decided he was going to pursue the vocation. One of the tasks he had to complete for school was to perform a number of adjustments on willing subjects (about 300 I think). I can still remember how I bravely stepped up to the plate and let him take a crack at my spine. (His own brother said, "you’re not touching me") He graduated about 5 years ago and is quite good at it now, his hands are almost magic and he gives great crack. Unfortunately for me he lives 1500 miles away, practicing and living in Florida. About 2 years ago I re-injured my back again (same spot) and checked out the chiropractor in the mall down the street. He talked allot about health and spinal wellness. And tried to tell me that a skeletal adjustment can cure everything from a cold to bladder infections. I gave it a chance and went to about 6 sessions with him. He never performed a manual adjustment on me but instead choose to use a thing that looked like a giant syringe with a little hammer on the end. He would click it several times along my spine and send me on my way. I knew that time would make my back pain go away from experience so after 2 weeks I felt better. This did not stop him from trying to take credit for it. I stopped going to my appointments after that never to return. 2 days ago my old familiar lower back pain flared up again. I decided to wait this one out and treat it with painkillers and hot baths. I know that if I went to a chiropractor he/she could fix it in 15 seconds and I could even tell them what I needed them to do but.... They would want to take x-rays and who knows what else. It’s too bad but in my experience 50% of the chiropractors out there suck, 25% practice in Florida, so that leaves me with a 25% chance of getting some good crack.

Exercise

Monday against my better judgement I went to the gym and did a 1km swim and a 17 mile bike ride and weights.

While at the gym Friday night I watched a woman run around the track with wooden clogs, 4-inch platform wooden clogs. The fact that she had a large chest and no sports bra seemed secondary to her choice of exercise footwear. Today I watched a 60+-year-old man get on a treadmill with a large coffee. He could not locate the drink holder on the inside portion of the equipment so he decided to rest his hot beverage on the horizontal side arm. He proceeded to enter his personal information and adjust the settings. One of which is "incline". As the front of the treadmill rose his coffee slid off the arm and hit the ground with a splash. The best part, after he cleaned it up he went and got a refill. I wonder if he went for a smoke too?

Exercise

Friday

Bike 13 miles, Run 2km

Saturday

Bike 16 miles, Run 2km

I can't remember exactly what I ate on Friday but I can tell you I have lost 5lbs over the holidays.

go figure!