We continue to work on finding the most productive ways to improve cerebral palsy symptoms. The journey Dana and I have shared has lasted almost nine years. Our work together has often felt like an experiment or case study. As we attempt to find the best ways to alleviate my struggles with cerebral palsy, maybe our work can also help other chiropractors and CP patients. For the reason of helping those people, it feels important to continue discussing our work. It also seems crucial to keep in mind that I am no doctor, so things discussed here might not be totally scientific. Today, we looked at changing the frequency of becoming adjusted by Dana. We had elevated our frequency a few weeks ago, by moving from weekly visits, to attempting visits every four or five days. It felt challenging to keep up with the varied schedule of seeing Dana twice during one week and just once during the following week. We had also added the Muscle Ezze supplement along with the increased frequency of adjustments. The combination seemed to be working well, so we wanted to put things to the test.
Our journey began with skepticisms toward chiropractic adjustments. It was difficult to believe in the ability of something improving cerebral palsy symptoms. But, after hearing that Dana took time to research how CP might react to chiropractic adjustments, it sounded like he wanted to help. The process would be a new experience for both of us and Dana seemed intrigued by the prospect of working together. My first time lying flat on my belly for an adjustment was met with anxiety. There are emotional challenges attributed with trying something new and I was shaking like a leaf. One major effect of cerebral palsy has been nervous energy bringing about some trembling throughout my body. So, while face down on the table, my left arm quivered back and forth. That first adjustment felt strangely awkward, but carried feelings of positivity. After rising from the table, the adjustment had almost brought on a euphoric feeling. My hips had been out of alignment by an inch for who knows how long. The impact of Dana adjusting my body had relieved so much pain and tension, it almost felt like I could relax and breath for the first time.
Our appointment carried on once per week for a number of months. After my nervous energy around being adjusted subsided, trust began growing with Dana. Before I knew it, each week found me looking forward to working with Dana for the half hour we spent. The feeling of rising from his table into the euphoric pain free state continued after each session. It was a feeling so foreign to my body and one that eventually became anticipated with excitement, rather than apprehension. As the weeks passed and comfort was still growing, Dana began experimenting on working with different muscle. He would perform deep tissue work on various muscles through the left side of my body. The left side being the side of my body most effected by my disability. Dana seemed to be searching for the muscle to work on, which would provide the best relief for those cerebral palsy symptoms. He only had a half hour to work with me per week, so it was finding the most effective way to use our appointment. We seemed to finally discover the most productive use of time was spent bringing relief to both hands and my left forearm.
The body was showing signs of improvement. So, we made an attempt to push out our appointment, making them every other week. We found two weeks was making things deteriorate, the adjustment was losing its effectiveness. After a month or so of meeting every other week, the decision was made that we return to adjustments every week. One of our biggest successes attributed to meeting once a week was having my legs reach a discrepancy of just an eighth of an inch. When Dana and I began our journey, my legs were unbalance by a full inch. This means over the years we had been working, there had been many signs of improvement. Not only were my hips becoming more aligned, but the cerebral palsy began getting better in other ways as well. One of the challenges through life has been difficulty with speech. It would have never occurred to me that a chiropractor could help my speech improve, but that began to take place. Along with his work on my hips, back, hands, and forearm, he also manually adjusted my neck. It turned out, aligning the vertebra in my neck was relieving neck tension and allowing more clarity in my speech. Not only did my speech become more understandable, but it was physically easier to speak. My challenges with cerebral palsy were becoming easier, but we still had steps to take along the journey.
Even with all the improvements, we still couldn’t reach our goal of consistent hip alignment. My hips consistently hovered around the discrepancy of an eighth of an inch. The pain associated with that difference in leg length had become normal, just like the pain of my hips being off an inch before we began had become normal. It wasn’t until my mother got herself into pain from her leg length being inconsistent by just an eighth of an inch, did I realize the pain that was continuing in my body. This, along with other factors in life, had me wanting to find more improvement. So, Dana and I took another step, attempting to find more relief for the pain and tension in my body. The supplement of Muscle Ezze had begun to alleviate tension in my body by helping reduce muscle spasm and we started more frequent adjustments. Instead of working together every week, we did an adjustment every four or five days. Over the next month my body was showing improvements. The hips were closing the gap to becoming level. If my hips weren’t level, they were only out of alignment by a sixteenth of an inch. My speech was showing improvement and the quivering throughout my body had been reduced. Everything about my body was feeling better. It brought about news feelings of comfort. However, we wanted to find the key to this new found physical stability.
With all of the improvement over the month after changing our process, we wanted to attempt identifying where the change was originating. So, we went back to only meeting once per week. The thought being that maybe the Muscle Ezze supplement was the main factor helping my body. If the supplement was reducing tension to the point of keeping my body aligned, then it was the silver bullet. The information would tell us the Muscle Ezze would allow us to continue reducing the adjustment, reaching the best balance of supplement and adjustment. So far, we have found my body deteriorate back to a more painful state. Over the two-week trial of returning to adjustments once a week, the pain came roaring back. It became more difficult to speak and my hands were trembling more than I remembered before. Typing these blog posts was becoming more painful, after realizing the ease that had been found with the increasing of adjustments. During that month, I was beginning to type with less pain, allowing me to write longer each day. The final overriding factor was my hips reverting back to being out of alignment by an eighth of an inch again. Our decision was made to again increase our number of adjustments, hoping to reestablish, and continue the improvement of my cerebral palsy symptoms.
Coming up with the best plan to help my disability has been a journey. The implementation of the supplement turned into something helpful toward our goals. We also increased the frequency of adjustments slightly to help find better solutions. Both steps seemed to work well during the first month of this process. Because of that success we decided to slow the adjustments back to once per week. Our thought being the Muscle Ezze supplement might have the ability to solely maintain the positive outcomes. We found reducing the sessions with Dana back to once per week brought back the pain quickly throughout my body. Leading us to feel the supplement doesn’t have the ability to function on its own, without an increase in chiropractic adjustments. So, our next idea has become again increasing the frequency of Dana’s adjustments. Because we seem to have found our work together has been a key component to the easing of pain brought about by cerebral palsy symptoms. Instead of simply attempting to meet for adjustment every four or five days, we will begin meeting twice per week. This week will start our rotation of adjustments of Mondays and Fridays. The goal being to reach level hips consistently, while helping speech, hand movement, and overall improvement. Hopefully, our work can also help others with cerebral palsy find less pain and struggle.
A Journey With Cerebral Palsy 