The Cuboid Bone

Instead of being at work, not even halfway through my shift, I am at home with the intent to stay off my feet as much as possible. So far, I have surfed Facebook and a news forum, started and finished reading a book, and searched for information on the cuboid bone. This is not what I had expected for today, but then again I hadn’t expected to spend most of yesterday limping in pain.

In between yesterday’s training session and my work day, I had an appointment with my chiropractor. While I had no major complaints for this visit, I did have a lengthy list of rather minor aches and discomforts ranging from my knee to my neck. My chiropractor is great. I love him, even when he laughs at the discomfort he inflicts on that tender spot in my quad or the faces I make in anticipation of the discomfort he is about to inflict as he twists me like a pretzel. Even though I shouldn’t be taken off-guard by it anymore, every time he suddenly yanks on my foot, I am surprised. Especially yesterday. While that action feels violent in the moment, it is generally no worse than any other aspect of treatment. Except for yesterday. I don’t think I could have put into words why it felt different yesterday; I just knew that it did and not in a pleasant way. I thought nothing of it. I am used to my chiropractor poking, prodding, twisting, yanking, scraping, bruising, and inflicting a bit of pain on my body…all in the effort to keep me healthy and mobile and make me a supple leopard.

I left my appointment feeling pretty good. Becoming a temporary pretzel hadn’t felt good, but my back and neck were already sighing with post-adjustment relief. I went home, made myself some lunch, spread out on the floor and blogged about my training session, still feeling fine. Until I got up to get ready to go to work. My right foot hurt when I walked. I was mildly perplexed, uncertain why my foot was hurting and thinking that it would go away shortly. At that point in time, the pain wasn’t very bad and I could walk with a relatively normal stride. Once at work though, the pain increased quite rapidly and my ability to walk deteriorated just as quickly. By the time I was finished work, I was limping quite heavily and could barely move my foot in certain directions. Of course, being the intelligent person that I am, I had managed to put 2 and 2 together to get 4, meaning that I now realized that whatever was going on with my foot was a result of that yank by my chiropractor earlier in the day.

Over the course of my training life, I have had little bumps in the road as far as aches and pains and injuries go. I needed stitches in a finger three weeks before my first powerlifting competition. I’ve had minor shoulder, knee, disc and hip issues. I dropped a box onto my neck three weeks before a competition last year. There have been many sore muscles and tender spots, but I really haven’t had any serious injury. Nothing that has absolutely prevented me from doing what I want to do for very long. Last night, being unable to put weight on my foot without pain and having my ankle mobility greatly limited, gave me reason to think about how this could impact my training. There would be no way I could squat, because a) my ankle wouldn’t bend enough and b) the pressure on my foot would be intensely painful. Then how would I be able to deadlift? How could I push my feet into the floor without crying? I was glad that my first competition of the year isn’t until June, because I had no clue how long it would be for my foot to be better. I had even determined that I would be okay with doing all upper body stuff, if necessary, until such time as I could do the real stuff again. Pain and injury have a funny way of projecting doom & gloom into your psyche.

My chiropractor was able to fit me in first thing this morning. Hallelujah! He was quickly able to determine that the problem was with the cuboid bone. Such a tiny little thing, such a major pain. He said that he gets patients presenting with cuboid syndrome but that he has never caused it before. There is a first time for everything, and I guess I am honoured that I was the lucky victim for his first infliction of cuboid syndrome. (He thought that there was a funny secondary clunk when he yanked on my foot yesterday!) Thankfully, he said that it is a relatively quick and easy thing to fix! He worked some Graston magic and had me step on a racquetball and roll my foot on a dowel. It wasn’t much really, but the difference in how I walked before and after was amazing. There is still discomfort and soreness and a feeling of stiffness, but my foot feels greatly improved compared to last night. It should continue to improve quickly. I can move my foot more than I could this morning. There is still some discomfort in walking, but I am not limping nearly as much. I still like my chiropractor. I will survive.

Body Works

I’ve started typing and then deleted at least three times already. Over the weekend I had nothing to say, and now I have several threads of thought that I am suddenly reluctant to tug on. It’s not as if the content is too controversial or too personal or too much of anything, except that it might require too much thought and mental effort on my part, more than I have to give tonight.

Despite the fact that I made sure not to sleep on my right side, in order to spare my shoulder more discomfort, I think I slept reasonably well last night. Better than the night before certainly. I woke up feeling okay. I went to work and discovered that my brain really wasn’t with me. My reflexes were slow. My thought processes were slow. DOMS was gradually settling into my chest, shoulders, quads, and hips. Then a headache grabbed hold of my head like a vise. And then, almost my entire body began to feel out of sorts. From my head to my pelvis, my bones just felt wrong. I was ever so glad that I had an appointment with my chiropractor this afternoon, and time could not move fast enough.

My appointment went about as well as it possibly could. I like my chiropractor, even when he pokes and prods the super tender spots in my shoulder and continues to do so as I grimace and cringe. And he wonders why I have a difficult time relaxing my muscles when he’s working on me!

My shoulder is now a lovely shade of mottled red from the Graston technique he employed. It is extremely tender, which makes me so glad that I don’t have do my own digging into it until tomorrow, because that is now part of my homework!

Crack Addict

My name is Angela, and I am a crack addict. Yes, I am. I have been happily “cracking” my neck for quite some time. My husband and daughter cringe and tell me to quit doing it. I have looked it up and learned all the reasons why my habit is not a good one and why I really should stop, but I kept on doing it anyway. Although I have cracked my neck for years, I do think that the habit has only become frequent over the past couple of months.

Given that my previous experiences with chiropractors were less than wonderful and that I keep my current and beloved chiropractor busy with other parts of my body, like shoulders, hip and knee, I have been reluctant to bring up my neck-cracking issues. I had planned on mentioning it a few weeks ago, but then my stupid shoulder issue decided to flare up, so I held onto my nasty little secret.

My most recent appointment was last Wednesday morning, and I was determined to make my confession. It was much easier to say, “I have a confession to make…” than it was to actually spit out that I crack my neck…a lot. It is quite possible that I was squirming in my seat as I stumbled through my confession, and I think he enjoyed the guilt written all over my face. I’m not really sure why I was so reluctant to tell my chiropractor my secret, because I know his character well enough to know that he wasn’t going to incinerate me with wrath or condemnation. I suppose my reluctance stemmed from knowing that he would tell me to stop and I would feel compelled to obey, because I am a people-pleaser and desperately hate to disappoint people who I truly like. As expected, my chiropractor told me to stop cracking my neck! In fact, he gave my kids permission to jump on me if I crack my neck, and he threatened to Graston my eyeballs if I don’t comply. Google Graston Technique if you aren’t familiar with the term. My chiropractor has done Graston on other parts of my body, and it hasn’t always been the most fun or enjoyable experience. I’d rather not crack my neck than have my eyeballs tortured!

Except for those moments when I desperately want to crack my neck! My last personal neck crack was Wednesday morning, most likely shortly before my chiropractor appointment…because I knew what was coming! By Thursday I felt positively twitchy. I desperately wanted to crack my neck. I managed to refrain. Friday wasn’t much better. On Saturday, I sent my chiropractor a text telling him that if I didn’t hate failing so much I would totally tell him to go ahead and Graston my eyeballs!  But I have been a good girl. I have not cracked my neck since Wednesday morning. The twitch factor has diminished a fair bit today…mostly. There are still moments when the urge to reach my hand up to tilt my head just so is almost overwhelming. I catch myself arching my back and neck in a subconscious effort to elicit a little crack of relief…so far I have been unsuccessful. I am determined to make it all the way to my next appointment without cracking my neck. It just might be the longest two weeks of my life, but I’m going to do it!