Downward Facing Blog

 I have been receiving some feedback from my last post How Did I Save My Low Back Pain. Among which are few inquiries about pain on other parts of the body. As I was reading those feedback, there’s a constant resonance from inside: I know this, I had this before…. Makes me wonder if I’m just that prone to injuries. Maybe. Nonetheless it turns out to be a blessing in disguise: not only am I more aware of my body but to read other’s more easily, too.

Since January this year, I have been fighting with this lingering issue around my left shoulder.  I tried the bone-crackling chiropractic that eased the pain but didn’t solve the problem. The pain eventually disappeared from the left shoulder after I stopped all practices for 10 days while I was in a Vipassana retreat. It didn’t last long.

I remember clearly when the right side of my neck started to hurt. It was in July, few days after we moved into the current apartment. Anyone who knows me knew I have very high pain threshold. So, trust me when I say the pain was excruciating. A simple act of turning my head while I rolled over in the middle of the night made me go “OUCH!” I started my mornings with a “OUCH!” and a “POP!” in the left shoulder. Although I am addicted to cracking my joints (wrist, ankle, elbow, spine, neck. You name it, I have it) for the sheer tension release, the awfully loud “POP!” from the left shoulder was alarming (my years of expertise in bone cracking intuitively told me so).

Under the recommendation from Mia, I met a McTimoney Chiropractic doctor. Unlike the bone-cracking treatment that is so widely available, McTimoney’s is different: instead of fixing the bone, producing popping sounds that give short-live contentment, McTimoney’s approach is gentle and yet powerful. I was in awe.

Instead of treating where the pain is, McTimoney’s look for the source. In my case, although I was troubled by my neck, the McTimoney’s doctor treated my left hip in the first session, and left wrist, left elbow on the subsequent visits, but never directly manipulated my neck nor spine. The coolest thing is he refused to treat me even though there was still pain in the right neck after the last session because he couldn’t find any structural dysfunction in me! He simply advised me to rest and observe for the next one month. 

Now, my neck has regained full range of motion; I no longer wake up at night with “OUCH!”. My left shoulder still cracks (I just did it and shocked Adrian as I’m writing this), and I’m working to restore the musculoskeletal dysfunction of my shoulder diligently.

In retrospect, I could perhaps reason the origin of this shoulder + neck episode. Back before I strained my left shoulder with heavy weight, I was trying to break my personal record and challenge Mr BKS Iyengar in building my Sirsasana into 30 minutes, first thing in the morning. I did achieve my personal best at 20 minutes but I started having neck strain since. This, coupled with a structural lumbar scoliosis and imbalance hips, served to the accumulation of what transpired.

I meant to blog on shoulder pains but as usual, I was side-tracked. In the next article, Identify Shoulder Pains.