Little Update

I believe I told you that they’ve cut back my chiropractor appointments to two a week.  Anyway, I have two other interesting benchmarks.
1)  Every time they do a progress report, they ask me if my problems with gluten have lessened (I’ve never been diagnosed, but I seem to have trouble with wheat).  Everytime I scoff and say no.  Thursday I ate entire Lasagna.  Friday I ate three bagels in a poorly-planned binge.  :)  I realized Saturday that I’d had no effects from either.  So I had two hot dogs.  About that time I started having the most minor symptoms.  Yesterday I had a wheat-based sauce and pop tarts just to push matters further.  Today is a good day, but I can finally see the effects. I’m not the kind of guy to believe a chiropractor can cure a condition that’s almost certainly caused by an auto-immune disease, but it has occurred to me that symptoms might have been worse than they needed to be because of choked nerves between the spine and the organs.  Not conclusive, by any stretch, but I can certainly live happily with things as they’ve been this week.

2)  I wrote that entire last bit trying to avoid unpleasant biological talk.  This one is better.  Saturday night I was at my Dragonlance game with my Saturday group.  I leaned back a little hard in my 6-month-old office chair and the lock that holds it upright released.  Next thing I know all my weight and force are falling backward at full speed into the reclined position.  I’m a big guy.  I don’t let myself do that normally.  And this is why.  When I hit the extent of the recline, the force transfered into the aluminum socket for the base post (evidently FOAM aluminum).  The socket shattered and I flew backward, kicking the table and knocking water two feet into the air.  I landed flat on my back still in the chair.  I’m told it looked spectacular.

My friends were at my side immediately, but I waved them away, mainly because I wanted to orient.  I wasn’t hurting, but I knew that it would come in a moment.  I was actually REALLY comfortable.  After a minute I managed to roll out and stand on my own in my own crippled way.  :)  We moved the chair and slid a lazy-boy-style reclined over to the table.  I still didn’t hurt.  One of my friends suggested that I take a lortab.  I took a soma (I haven’t had to take one in a week) and said I’d be fine.  She pointed out that iboprofen and lortab were more effective if you take them before the pain hits, and my knee was just stiffening up from kicking the table, so I took her advice about a half hour later.  I never felt any real pain (above my normal level).  The next morning I was no stiffer than on any other Sunday.  I felt good.

Two months ago I wouldn’t have been able to think straight after an event like that.  I had days where my pain spiked for hours just because I came down hard on one leg when taking a step.

Anyway, I was so happy all that night that I didn’t even feel bad about breaking the chair (usually something like that would make a person feel fat, to say the least.)  :)

Bob