Necky Situations

Hey Folks, I know I am super behind on posting, but let me make it up to you.... Here is a quick update on the neck & back situation: I'm feeling WAY better. Most days I am pretty much pain free. And some days I feel just a little ache or I get a little stiff sometimes; but I have a much greater awareness of where it is in my body and what I was doing that probably triggered it . Generally it is from being stressed out and hunched over or sitting in odd positions for a long time. I've also come to terms that milk/dairy products make me feel like poop in many ways. If I put half and half in my coffee I know I will have a small flash of a headache across my forehead somewheres around mid-day and that the next day I will feel like I am coming down with a cold. In fact the more dairy I ingest the worse of an oncoming cold it feels like I'm getting the next morning. It really sucks because I really like cheese and my friend runs the best pizza joint in Baltimore so I spend a lot of time there. And dammit, nothing replaces cream or half and half in coffee or cheese! But I digress on other pains, back to the back... I am now on my 50 something-th of 65 treatments and I am going 3 days a week to adjustments and traction while working 4 days a week at the school. I sit a whole lot straighter most of the time. I've had to readjust the rear view mirror in my car (because I sit taller) and now can tell if its been a long day I'm slouching and can't see out the back so then I realize what I'm doing and readjust my body. I FEEL TALLER! I've taken the feather bed off of my bed (I have to say this was a sad night) and if my back is twinge-y I roll over onto my back (I'm a side sleeper) and can literally feel and hear it pop back into place. I've always had a "crunchy" back that snap, crackles, and pops, but I learned that it is not really a bad thing, just means that it moves easily. I've learned to find my zen while in traction I'll close my eyes and fall asleep with weights hanging off the back of my head and neck or with my butt hoisted in the air. It's really interesting that most of the other people I see there can't put the phone down and usually are still straining their necks to type, talk, or watch something on their phones while in traction (which is supposed to help straighten things out). Or how many of them think they know better than the Dr. and will try to say what they do or don't need- this always baffles me and I always want to ask them "Did you go to school for chiropractic care? Pass any medical exams? Because I'm pretty sure you didn't... and therefore you should not be making medical diagnoses or deciding your own treatment plan!". I also notice they don't have the same miraculous recovery that I had in 30 some treatments... hmm could there be a correlation between following the prescribed exercises and treatments and actual recovery? I want to get better and I follow the steps that will mostly likely get me there. Clearly that would just make too much sense to be true... Right? Anyway I've kinda come to look forward to finding my little zen-ness and actually get pretty disappointed if I don't fall asleep in traction. Here is my neck in its current situation (red line) from September around the 30th visit, we are talking about being a whole lot less hurt-y. Here is my neck (red line) in June against what it was supposed to look like (green line). At this point I kept finding myself saying " I want to stab my neck with a fork" I still don't understand how that was going to make it feel better - other than being a new distraction that it now had holes in it.... I am so happy my neck no longer looks and feels like this.