Optimistic about treating some pain, and avoiding a dowager's hump!

[urocyon]

The pain is pretty bad today, but I'm feeling encouraged. It's been really easy to get overwhelmed trying to figure out where to start working on things, while spending a lot of different kinds of spoons on putting out fires. But, I ran across some info which gives me more "this is throwing that out of whack, which is in turn throwing this other thing out of whack" context, which makes it a lot easier to figure out what needs attention in what order. (Not so good at sequencing and prioritizing, anyway.)

I knew the curve in my lower back was almost gone, and has been for a long time now--with much unhelpful muttering about "disc compression" from the orthopedist, 15+ years ago. I also suspected that compensating for the hip/lower back weirdness had messed up my shoulders and neck.



Come to find out, this is a common problem, which is very treatable with pretty much the opposite approach to hyperlordosis-causing Lower Crossed Syndrome, which tilts the pelvis the other way. Tight hamstrings have been implicated, and mine are a spastic mess. I've kept getting distracted from trying to work out the knots by having to sort out more pressing flareups elsewhere.

And, indeed, it looks as if leaning forward, trying to balance with the lumbar curve flattened out, has taken me into Upper Crossed Syndrome. "Traditional fitness programs place significant emphasis on cardiovascular fitness, muscle development, and max strength, without regard to postural health."--no joke! I've also found some reasonable-sounding suggestions for dealing with this--involving some muscles I hadn't considered as problems, but it makes sense that they would be. No wonder the work I've done on it so far hasn't given more lasting relief! The shoulders and neck are giving the worst pain right now. Though the shoulder and neck problems only became obvious under extra repetitive strain (with my lower back out) while working at Iceland, that just exascerbated the problem, AFAICT. I certainly had the frontal headaches with droopy watery eye ("cluster headaches"), TMJ pain, etc. attributed to tight sternocleidomastoids before. This was confirmed by massage and stretching helping the symptoms, including stopping a two-day migraine in its tracks the other day.


It may sound silly, but I didn't know there was anything wrong with head-forward posture; most of the adults I grew up around had it! I just considered it part of The Build (with decent illustrations of how far forward my posture was 5 years ago, not to mention my mom's). Less directly, the attempts at balancing may well be affected by having a huge torso and head on top of no hips! A lot of my family have had the lumbar hypolordosis, too, now that I know what it is.


I'd been a bit concerned about developing a huge dowager's hump like my Nana had. The hard, muscular "buffalo hump" I have developed is, indeed, apparently the beginning of it. Nana's was attributed to osteoporosis--as is still common, research to the contrary--but, if so, that was the only sign of it. (This also made me feel safer, then I started getting an obvious hump.) She's exactly where I got the strong tendency to buzz around like a dyspraxic hummingbird, and you'd think she'd have fractured other things if her bones had been brittle. Being that active and accident-prone is a great way to accumulate and exacerbate muscle injuries, however. She also had a flat back and wonky knees. At least the hump turns out to be preventable, even if it's a shame she didn't know that. :/

On a related note, this is one of the reasons it makes me want to scream and throttle professionals when they just assume that I've gotten myself into this musculoskeletal mess through being a couch potato, all evidence to the contrary. Messes caused/aggravated by having trouble sitting down*, and by overtraining, require rather different management. (Even if it hurts, I'm going to use it until the muscle refuses to work anymore. Not always good.) This is one of the main reasons I had to discontinue PT recently, besides their neglecting to take obvious trigger points into account with stretching and strengthening. I assumed they would, since the practice claims to treat myofascial problems, but apparently not.

Knowledge is good.

* Frequently literally. Sitting down for long has been uncomfortable since I broke my tailbone 20 years ago and set up trigger points in every nearby muscle, leading to sacroiliac weirdness. This has led to other muscular strains.

Comments

[ivy]

I think yoga and things like it are my balancing addition to my normal fitness routine... they definitely have helped me with posture and things of the sort. Hooray for stopping a two day migraine in its tracks! I'm glad that you're getting some relief there.

I am having similar "OH" insights with regards to POSE running, and how it doesn't fuck up my knees. Sensible musculoskeletal management is a wonderful thing.

[vatine]

And unfortunately, I am of no help, having completely different musculo/sceletal issues (hi, hypermobile joints, we're soon going to need some weigts, so we can stop left shoulder from dislocating as much, it did work on right shoulder).

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear that yoga has helped. I've considered trying it--some gentle stretching and attention to posture could only be beneficial! Figuring out what was causing most of the headaches was a relief, especially since head and face massage was only calming a lot of them down a little. I must have glossed over mentions of front-of-neck tension being responsible for a lot of migraine-type pain, though it's there in a lot of the stuff I'd been reading--doesn't seem that intuitive until you pay attention to the mechanics. Probably another demonstration of the "putting out fires" approach.

I get the feeling that this is one of the sharp ends of the Balance Is Good theme, much in evidence lately. It's certainly pointing out a number of areas that need balancing, including running around like a klutzy chicken so much of the time. ;)

Sensible musculoskeletal management is a wonderful thing.

Oh yes. Sometimes I feel stupid when I finally see how things fit together, because a lot of the mechanics are so obvious once you have enough info. But, you can only do your best with the knowledge at hand, and it's a shame that decent info about how the musculoskeletal system actually works is not more widespread. At least half the people I know have chronic pain, most of it looking preventable and treatable.

POSE, eh? I hadn't heard of that approach before. From quick Googling, it definitely looks worth checking out. One of these days, I'd like to get back into running, and screwing up my knees again has been a concern.

[urocyon-c.livejournal.com]

Yes, Mr. Peculiar Joint Behavior. :) Hypermobility hasn't helped mine, either, but it shows up in rather different ways. Should the 2kg dumbbells help, or do you need something bigger starting out?

You have been helping, with the massage. And, even more importantly, by not acting like I'm some kind of whiny malingerer! :/