So I suffered a back injury 22 months ago where my darling dog Ruddles; all 3 stones of him, decided to lurch forward to lie down in the car on my lap so I had to grab him, just as my husband drove right around a mini-roundabout. We were on our way to the specialist vet 60 miles away in a vain attempt as it turned out, to save Ruddles’ life. We got out of the car an hour and a half later and I knew I’d done something as I felt I was walking in an S-shape with my bum sticking out like a dinner tray. As I couldn’t leave Ruds for more than an hour at a time as he was on steroids which were making him incontinent, it wasn’t until the little soul died 3 months later when I could investigate my back.
Having a driver study to become an osteopath he pointed me to his training hospital where I could get cut price treatment to become a case study for the students, which also meant stripping to my underwear with only a lurid green hospital gown to preserve my modesty in front of up to three students. It wasn’t as bad as I thought and I bravely jutted my chin (I was going to say stick my chest out but that would be just wrong under the circumstances!) and went along with it.
I was doing OK until the first student, asked to comment on my posture, proceeded to tell me I had hypermobile knees and a dropped right arch!..Quite indignantly I pointed out I was there for my back and what did my knees and feet have to do with that?..they explained, I listened. I also learnt quite a lot! For instance, that had I gone to see them 3 months earlier the prognosis would have been better for my back! By this time I couldn’t put socks on or tie a shoe lace!
I had decided to start training for a half marathon with my BNI group under the Osteos’ guidance after a couple of months when just weeks before it I was thrown from a friend’s horse I was going to help exercise. Stupid me got back on after the first fall but after the second one Rich drove me to the North Staffs with a suspected broken back/neck! I also broke the metatarsal in my left foot which stopped me training for anything and overall I set my back treatment straight back to the beginning whilst still performing in the band in my sexy Wayne Rooney boot which didn’t altogether help!
Told that Pilates would help me from the start, as one of the osteo students was a Pilates instructor from Solihull, she had a good old feel of my belly as I chortled I didn’t think I had any muscle under it and to be fair I didn’t do anything about classes, also failing to keep up with the exercises that they did give me – which also to be fair is difficult with a Jack Russell that bounces on your chest as you’re flat on your back putting it into spasm, or a slightly vacant collie that sits staring at you, occasionally dribbling…I also have an aversion to organised classes of most kinds and did do ballet, tap and piano up until I was 17 from age 5. Enough is enough, yes?
From September 2010 to February this year I ran out of money so couldn’t go for osteo but when I went did go back I got a different set of students and one day the overseeing tutor had a good old pummel telling me that in my shoulders I’d got – now let me get this right – soggy, mossy skin! He went on to explain that with everything that had gone on in 2010, Ruds dying, Rich being made redundant, the horse accident etc, etc that my endocrine system was depressed leaving this ‘mossy’ description of my skin where he said my endocrine system was not draining it properly…
Pause for effect…
Me and the delightful Irish student waited for him to leave, looked at each other and said “Did you understand a word of that?”
To cut a long story short, I needed exercises to expand my diaphragm, which is attached to the part of my spine that is immobile that would then help my endocrine system, also attached there, to drain this mossiness away and strengthen my muscle. Got that?
Unfortunately the next appointment saw the usual students and tutor and although I had walked out on air after the previous treatment and was full of this new approach, they didn’t do much of the diaphragm stuff and basically told me to come back in 6 weeks which hardly investigated that side so I didn’t go again.
Move forward to July and my back was in two again so with a Groupon voucher I got 3 chiropractor treatments for a good price and thought I’d try that route instead. I was cracked, pummeled and battered which was more instantaneously beneficial. She also mentioned Pilates. I wasn’t going to get away from this was I!
I researched and found, at last, a trained instructor in the area and I’ve been for my second lesson today. I hate going! I still hate organised classes! Last week I cried in the class as I was so unhappy in the situation (thankfully no one noticed as I stood at the back!) I’m not much older than everyone and considerably younger than some, but I HATE being useless at something, so my tears were more borne out of frustration and inadequacy than anything else and hey! I went back today didn’t I!…
The instructor is lovely, kind, knowledgeable and funny. She is also about my age but has THE most beautiful body I’ve ever seen and SWEARS by Pilates. It is her passion and I will be benefitting from it, once I can stop sulking of course! My back is rigid and I have difficulty with some of the exercises but she assures me that this will do the trick and that is why I’m there…
Are you going to encourage me to go next week?
