My New Best Friend

I hope Kim doesn't mind me borrowing her photo from her website, but I'm going to give her business Restoration Massage free publicity here. Kim is a therapist who is helping me on my road to recovery. Most of you who read my blog know about my problems with pain. My chiropractor sent me to Kim a few weeks ago, and I have to sing her praises here. Although I do have a herniated disc in my back, my chiropractor was convinced it was NOT the source of my pain- which is in my groin, thigh, and hip on my right side. So he sent me to Kim. I was thinking relaxing spa massage. Oh, heck no! Kim specializes in massages to help folks with injuries or pain. Specifically for me, trigger point massage. I don't know how to explain this procedure but to say it hurts like a cruel form of torture! It is not a "massage" in the traditional sense- instead she takes her thumb, hand, or even elbow and presses down as hard as she can on my thigh or butt, until I say "No more!" and slowly, as she continues to apply the pressure, the muscle relaxes all on its own. It is a freaky feeling, I wish I could put it into words. But, the results are amazing, and she is teaching me how to do it, so I can either show James how or I can even perform it on myself.

After getting my medical history, Kim believes that my pain is caused by contracted muscles, leftover from 2006 when I was suffering greatly with an ovarian cyst. After spending months doubled over in agony, the cyst finally went away, but all the pain stayed. Readers of my blog know the history- the doctors, the epidurals, the pain pills, and nothing ever helped. As much as I love my chiropractor, he hasn't even helped relieve the pain. But at least he was honest enough to say, hey, I don't think it's your back after all, so let's try something else. Kim explained to me that when someone is injured or has a physical trauma (like my cyst), sometimes the muscles contract in that area. You know, ladies, when you have that fun monthly cramping, your body tends to fold in on itself with the pain. Well, my body did that, continually, for months on end while I had the cyst. Only, once the cyst was gone, the muscles continued to stay in that contracted position, and they never went back to normal. I know I'm not explaining it well, but you can sort of get the drift.



So all of this time, all of these years, my pain was from overly tight muscles that would never relax- and not my back. That's why it never showed up on an MRI or X-ray, why the epidurals never worked, and why the pain medication didn't work. The only thing that worked was the muscle relaxer I took at night, and now I know why. I see Kim once a week, and she performs trigger point therapy on my thigh and glutes for an hour per session. I have to say, I see a drastic improvement, and although I'm certainly not pain free yet I believe it is getting better- James and I even walked a 10K on Sunday morning! But I've stopped taking all pain medication, since I now know it's not going to help me. I will continue to visit Kim once a week so she can torture me, until the day I can officially say I am pain free and back to normal again!!!