Baby Got Back (Problems)

So, it's been awhile since I've posted, in large part because it's been awhile since I fenced. :(

After a couple weeks of practice being rained out or me incorrectly assuming it would be rained out, and therefore not going, my back went out in a major way the Sunday of Collegium, which resulted in me taking two weeks off practice.

I don't have a chronically bad back, per se, but I do have chronic low-grade chiropractic problems and hypermobile joints. I inherited them from my mother (although hers seem to have gotten a lot better in the last 10 years, and I'm hoping I'll experience similar recovery later in life). These have caused various problems over the years--I dislocated something in my thigh when I was 10 or 12 and tripped on the stairs (it can't have been the whole thing, because I put it back in myself, but wow, it was painful), tore cartilage in my ribcage on a backpacking trip in high school because a rib went out of alignment while I was wearing a big heavy pack, and I'm fairly sure they're why I tore the ligaments in the arch of my right foot last winter.

One of the nice things about having hypermobile joints is that once they go out, they're fairly easy to put back in by myself, and provided I get enough exercise and keep up a certain baseline of muscle mass, I don't suffer from major chiropractic injuries or displacements very often. One of the bad things about having hypermobile joints is that when they go out badly, they tend to go out again after they've been fixed, especially once they've been out for awhile already and all the wrong muscles are swollen. In those cases, swelling essentially makes the path of least resistance the "out" position the joint was in earlier.

All of this foolishness can be almost completely overcome by a few simple luxuries--Advil and/or Tiger Balm to relax muscles when necessary, lots of stretching and some light weight-bearing exercise (like, say, fencing), one of those orthopedic neck pillows (not memory foam--those eventually compress under the weight of my -enormous- head and give no more support than any regular pillow), fish oil supplements, and so on. I don't deserve any particular sympathy or comfort here, because I know how to take care of myself and 95 percent of my joint issues can be handled non-medically and with regular self-care. There are people out there with real medical issues that they can't heal themselves--they deserve sympathy and support. The point of this post is to illustrate, not to host a pity party. :)

Anyway, my back went out on Sunday morning, I got it fixed Monday afternoon, and skipped practice Wednesday. I was experiencing warm pain, weakness, tingling, and extremely limited range of motion until the Sunday after, so I decided to skip practice again the Wednesday following, just to be safe.

This also meant skipping a couple weeks of my wrist and arm strengthening exercises. The offending vertebra was in the center of my upper back (somewhere in the T-1 to T-3 region), so doing any exercises that involved extending my arms straight forward was extremely painful and resulted in spasms (I was driving with my left hand exclusively for awhile, because my right side hurt more than my left).

This was a really frustrating couple of weeks. I'd honestly thought joint flare-ups this bad were a thing of the past. The fact that I could still be incapacitated by back pain even though I was getting enough exercise and taking good enough care of myself (I thought!) really tanked my enthusiasm and self-esteem for a couple days there. I consider myself both lazy and self-indulgent, so the fact that I could throw my back out just sitting in the car dealt a huge blow to what was never a great body image or opinion of my own athleticism to begin with.

So, when I complain about my back or neck hurting, that's why--I have chronic chiropractic problems, and they're why I've been off the horse for the last few weeks. Onward and upward!