Sharp as a Marble - Electroshock therapy

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Electroshock therapy

TMI

I'm not 100% on board with chiropractors. It's not that I don't believe realigning the bones doesn't work, it's that I don't think snapping your neck and spine can cure everything from backaches to athlete's foot. However, with my neck going haywire, the doctor suggested I try it out and get some therapy since it doesn't seem to be responding to the drugs.

So, I made an appointment yesterday. Here's the funny thing – I wasn't a patient, but I called and got an appointment on the same day. So much for the health care crisis. Even if I didn't have insurance, I could have still made the appointment (I had to pay the full amount anyway due to my co-pay not being met anyway). The waiting room was full too, suggesting that I wasn't the only one able to get an appointment.

Back to the appointment. Of course the doctor said I needed his services (hence my apprehension at most chiropractors) and we scheduled a neck-breaking for today. I did get a treatment that consisted of electrodes being put on my upper shoulders and then having the ever lovin' snot shocked out of them. It was…weird. Felt like fuzzy little fingers rubbing my back. I kept giggling because it tickled, but honestly it kind of creeped me out. Spasms are bad enough when one muscle just starts doing its own thing, but having my entire back doing the hokey pokey all involuntarily like is just strange.

Worked, though. For the next few hours I didn't have much pain at all. I'm hoping a few more sessions on the Zapper will help me get over this.

posted @ 7/28/2009 7:55:15 AM

Comments

emdfl says:

on 7/28/2009 9:03:48 AM

Look around and see if you can find one that is an Ortho-ogomist(sp?). They use a little hammer-gun to move out-of-alignment vertibre back into alignment. The muscle electro shock is good short term stuff, but if the spine is out the muscles will gradually be pulled back out as well.

Skullz says:

on 7/28/2009 9:29:34 AM

I was skeptical of Chiropractors too, until my sciatic pain became unbearable and unfixed by anything else.

My Doc used the stim-pads too. I had the same reaction that you did - and the same results.

The truly amazing part of my experience with the chiropractor was that; not only did it relieve my sciatic pain... I used to get pretty severe headaches on a regular basis, some approaching migraine status - they disappeared. I haven't had an unexplained headache in 3 years.

NatefromOgden says:

on 7/28/2009 10:45:05 AM

I found a chiro that I really liked some years back for my lower back pain. His stim pads and heat blanket used to put me right to sleep after the first couple times (weird at first) and I really looked forward to my visits. Keep going, you may feel better than ever in a few visits.

Yu-Ain Gonnano says:

on 7/28/2009 10:49:41 AM

The actual value of chiropracty depends on what you need to fix. Pure quackery with the athlete's foot and the cancer, but when your problem *really is* your backbone, they can be absolutely wonderful.

Your body really does work better when it's arranged a certain way. When your elbow pops out of place, you get someone to put it back in. It won't do a damned thing for your flu, but it'll make your elbow feel a whole lot better. :-)

Re: E-stim. Not a chiropracty thing. Athletic trainers have been using the thing for decades. Neat as hell device. It can be set anywhere from little minor and rapid contractions which tickle all the way up to near constant contractions beyond what most liberals would consider torture. It does work though. Damned near lived on the machine in college playing baseball (catcher, and I've got the knees to prove it)

drobviousso says:

on 7/28/2009 11:38:08 AM

The problem is that there are people ranging from real physical therapists with real, legitimate western evidence based education, and then there are new age hippy dippy conspiracy theorists with no real medical training, and they all practice under the name chiropractor.

In my experience, I find the best way to sort the idiots from the good ones is to as 1)about their education and 2) what they claim can not be fixed by their services. I don't know of any reputable medical school that offers a Doctorate in Chiropractory. Look for colleges that you know that have real degrees.

Jake says:

on 7/29/2009 3:50:24 PM

"the best way to sort the idiots from the good ones is to as[k] 1)about their education [...]I don't know of any reputable medical school that offers a Doctorate in Chiropractory."

A couple of things I learned when the Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine opened here a few years ago:

1) Osteopathy is real medicine with a slightly different focus - a Doctor of Osteopathy (DO) can practice in any field an MD can;

2) DO's get training in chiropracty(sp?) - scientifically known as "osteopathic manipulation" - along with "conventional" medical training. There is scientific evidence supporting it's effectiveness for certain problems.

Like Yu-Ain Gonnano said "The actual value of chiropracty depends on what you need to fix. Pure quackery with the athlete's foot and the cancer, but when your problem *really is* your backbone, they can be absolutely wonderful."

DJ says:

on 7/29/2009 10:29:46 PM

Been there, done that, fixing three episodes of "just shoot me, I don't want this".

The first was for a pinched nerve at the base of my neck (which sounds like what you have). I've had this problem on and off since a Tuesday morning at about 9:45 AM in February, 1972, during a Calculus class (yes, it was that memorable), when things suddenly shifted with an audible "thump". Back then, it got better on its own. Then in about 1988 or so, it flared up and I spent six weeks in horror. A chiropractor whom I often played racketball with crunched it both ways three days in a row and all was better. Afterwards, it still came and went about twice a year.

Then, early last year, I bent over to tie a shoe and my 3rd lumbar vertebra rotated about ten degrees. I found a brand-new chiropractor who had just set up shop. About ten sessions of crunching and tugging put it back in place and finally got it to stay there. It's still fine, and I tie my shoes very carefully.

Finally, a few months ago, my 12th thoracic vertebra did the same thing. He crunched it, and in the process, he crunched my neck such that its recurring problem is gone.

He also taught me a simple and easy method of crunching my own back. You might try it. I lay on my back on the floor, pull my feet up so they are flat on the floor with my knees bent, pick my shoulders up slightly with my arms crossed against my chest, then roll the thoracic part of my back around and around on the floor, back and forth and left and right, clockwise and counterclockwise, for about 30 seconds. It sounds like I'm crunching a sack of chicken bones. Then I grab my calves, pull them up to arch my lower back, and roll it back and forth for about 15 seconds. When I stand up, nothing hurts, and it lasts all day. Tastes great, less filling.

Chiropractors are not magicians, but they can work wonders at putting vertebra back in line. It's easy, it's cheap, and it's immediate.

Besides that, mine is a deer and hog hunter, too. We get along fine.

knot says:

on 7/31/2009 10:55:20 AM

The best chiropractors will teach you exercise and stretching that complements or replaces the need for their services altogether by strengthening troubled areas. . . And I LOVE electro-stim. It really relaxes things in the long run.

Not a cancer cure but if the defect is nerve related in the spine they are worth their weight in silver.

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