If a therapist has to first feel pain in order to treat it, then I am ready (again).
I’ll be honest, I was a little too excited last Sunday about the few centimeters of snow we got in Val-David. I went sledding with my wife and three year-old daughter. Let’s just say that the terrain in the Laurentians is a bit different (really rocky), three centimeters of snow doesn’t make for much cushion, and a millimeter thick crazy carpet sled doesn’t do much to absorb the direct impact of a large-sized iced-to-the-earth rock and what I previously thought to be a rather solid bone (my tailbone to be exact). Oh momma! The last time I remember so badly hitting my coccyx (tailbone) was when I was about 8 years-old and slipped down the stairs at my home. And those stairs were carpeted!
But I honestly believe in taking the most from every situation (or at least trying to) and I wound up learning a lot about treating the coccyx and old tailbone injuries with acupuncture. There are a few different distal points to choose from depending on the style of acupuncture. I gave myself some treatments and I must say that it definitely helped me to get to work that week. From this experience, structurally speaking, I can see how a tailbone injury can affect a much wider area of the body than we might think. For me, the pain went up the spine and was much closer to the neck. The coccyx area felt bruised to the touch, but the more obvious pain was quite some distance away. I have found in the clinic that, especially with chronic pain, if we can go back further and further into the patients medical history, we can often find an injury that at the time seemed rather minor, but for whatever reason (didn’t heal properly, affected an important part of the body, etc.) is still affecting the patient’s healing process. If this old injury then is treated, the more obvious symptoms (miraculously) disappear. Unfortunately, it takes a bit of intuition, guess-work, good questioning, a willing patient, and some luck. Anyway, for all you patients out there, don’t be afraid to tell your therapists about all your old injuries and accidents, it might just be the key to unlocking your body’s full potential.
