I have had migraines and chronic pain for almost as long as I can remember. In elementary school I had a million brain scans and tests done in an attempt to figure out why I was having so many migraine headaches.
I had terrible posture when I was young. When I was in my early twenties and living in Halifax, I went to my doctor about my back pain and he had me bend over and touch my toes so he could see my spine stretched out. I can remember him saying: well look at that. You have a c curve between your shoulder blades. That was the whole conversation, as I recall. He prescribed me massage therapy.
I have done massage therapy off and on, sometimes painfully and intensively, for my entire adult life. I have had problems with my shoulder blades winging, most of my adult life.
Nobody ever talked to me about scoliosis. My doctor may have used the term “scoliotic curve,” but it was never expanded upon. Nobody ever said: you have scoliosis. Until now.
I have scoliosis. I have a thoracic c curve that causes me chronic back and neck pain and migraines. It also causes numbness and tingling in my extremities and tightness is my jaw. My left leg feels clunky almost all the time.
I have been experiencing waves of rage and other emotions since I found out that I have scoliosis, have essentially always had it, and nobody thought it was important to talk to me about it. I have tattoos on my hands and arms, and I have been treated, in the past, as if I was just looking for narcotics from walk in clinic doctors. I don’t even like to take pain killers except in extreme conditions. Massage therapy is always my first choice.
It is fortunate that I encountered yoga young, as a teen, and took up the practice. I don’t do it every day, and there have been stretches (no pun intended, lol) of time when I didn’t do it. But it is what I have found feels best for my body so it is a practice I always return to. The massage therapist I see, at a local physio clinic, has prescribed me a series of exercises, some with weights, and stretches that I have incorporated into my yoga routine, which is more regular once again.
And still I hurt. Every day, all day. Sometimes it wakes me in the night. Sometimes, after hours of doing research and writing at my laptop, writing longhand in my journal is painful because of the way I hold my arms and I have to stop. Sometimes my hands ache, like they do right now.
Living with chronic pain is debilitating for so many reasons. For me it is very distracting. I find it difficult to sit in one position for a stretch of time, and I am in extra pain afterwards. My ADHD (another adult diagnosis) does not help with this situation. It is also just distracting to always feel pain is your body, it is hard to concentrate.
The other thing I find is that it is exhausting. I am a person who has a tremendous amount of energy (again, see ADHD), and I have found ways to harness that energy and make it work for me. But sometimes it’s hard to keep up with myself and in the past I have found it difficult to rest. When I did rest, usually at the point of burn out, I would lay on the couch in some awkward position and read novels for hours on end (I still do this, the awkward reading I mean). No doubt, not so great for my back.
I have been learning over the past few years to give myself grace and to let myself take the rest I need when I need it. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but it’s necessary and helpful. And now, I am going to have to learn to give myself grace for the pain in my body, and take the rest I need, not push through when it’s really not necessary, be more mindful about the way I treat my body. Take the pain killers or muscle relaxers if it gets too much to bear.
I don’t want to lose my mobility as I age, and I am now at an age where I really do need to think about that, considering my spine.