Man, that's a bitch, Allan!

I don't think I would be too quick to write of chiropractic treatment.

Part of the problem with my shoulders is that another one of the legacies of polio was a scoliosis or spinal curvature. I'm not quite in Quasimodo's category (I have a lateral curvature, which most people don't really notice), but a couple of my vertebrae (cervical and upper thoracic, along with a couple of lumbar vertebrae) slide out of position with regularity. This leaves me feeling like I have a railroad spike or two in my back. Impinging on the nerves, it affects my left shoulder and arm in particular. Muscles between my neck and my shoulder cramped and rock-hard. Not fun.

I take chiropractic treatments every week or so. I have a jewel of a chiropractor whose office is only a few blocks from where I live. He takes a long lunch and goes jogging. On his way back to the office, he stops by my apartment and works me over. Rather than have me come to his office and have to transfer from my wheelchair to his adjusting table and back again (which could undo what he has just done) he adjusts me on my bed, so when he'd finished with the adjustment, I can just lay there and let it "set."

House calls! In this day and age! How rare is that!??

Anyway, my back and shoulders are sore as hell after he kneads the muscles and pops my vertebrae. He uses an "activator," which is looks like a large hypodermic needle, but it's actually a miniature spring-loaded boxing glove (small padded ball), and he says that a pop or two from the activator nudges the vertebra back to where it's supposed to be.

Seems to work, because after I lay quietly and rest for about half an hour after the adjustment, my back starts feeling fine, the knotted muscles relax, and my shoulders are nicely loosened up.

Although I'm not one of these "no medical doctors" types, I've been going to chiropractors all my life (often against the advise of an MD). My wife developed a scoliosis in her early teens, and the MDs put her in traction and in casts and such, but she still has it. Not bad, but it does get quite bothersome. Just like with my spine, the vertebra at the apexes of the curvature (sort of an "S" curve) slip out easily. She was having all kinds of back problems when we first met, and I recommended she go to my chiropractor. She said that MDs had been warning her all her life that, with her curvature, she should never go to a chiropractor. But on my recommendation (on the basis of the fact that she and I had the same problem, and I had had nothing but good experiences with chiropractors—but a bit apprehensively), she went to him.

The first relief from chronic back pain that she'd had in years! She's been having regular chiropractic adjustments ever since.

So, as I say, I wouldn't write them off. It would certainly be worth a consultation, and there's the chance that it could alleviate the problem.

Don Firth