The journey has lasted for years, but it seems the work with Dana has found its grove. We have experimented with many different ideas. The ideas have been to best improve cerebral palsy symptoms. These physical symptoms have been among the most challenging during my life. When beginning the trial of working with a chiropractor, there was plenty of skepticism about the benefits. The pain throughout my body had advanced to such a point that it had become normal. My hips had gotten out of alignment so far that one leg was shorter by an inch. Throughout this process, I’ve grown to understand how much pain can be caused by that kind of discrepancy. But, at the time, that pain had simply become a normal part of life. It never occurred to me that the pain could be improved upon so quickly. As we started adjusting my body, it was difficult to trust the new idea of chiropractic. The thought going through my mind was a possibility of doing further damage to my body. With cerebral palsy, already being difficult enough to handle, any unneeded challenges would just cause more stress. What became clear pretty quickly was how much these adjustments were going to help rather than hurt.
When we began adjusting my body felt extremely sensitive to the touch. The years of having never experienced much relief had left my body tight. My cerebral palsy seemed to have taken over the muscles, leaving them permanently tense. Those first few adjustment were among the most relieving occurrences in my life. It felt like a rubber band being released after having been pulled taunt for years. We used to laugh about the feelings that rushed through my body just after being adjusted. Those adjustments from Dana almost brought about the feeling of euphoria. It seemed to provide those emotions because of the amount of pain being released from my body. Our session would begin with casual conversation, but as the adjustment progressed it was difficult to follow the conversation. My body would fall into such relief, it was tough to concentrate on the things going on around me. I would fall into enjoyment of my body feeling relief from the pain it was experiencing. It seemed the chemicals in my body could flow without inhibition following the adjustment. Kind of like those positive chemicals could finally come back into my brain. The adjustments were providing positive feelings.
As our journey continued, things began improving. We were able to cut into the inch of discrepancy in the length of my legs. Soon we got that inch down to half of an inch. We also found many external factors went into the improvement of my hips. The activity level from week to week contributed to my leg length. Some of the activities during any given week could tweak my back, causing my hips to pull out of place. Sometimes it was startling to the point of feeling the impact happen. But, most weeks activities would gradually move my hips out of alignment. Another factor causing my hips to slid out of place during a week seemed to be emotional stress. Any stress can have impacts on our body and for me it tends to add tightness to my muscles. Those muscles which are already dealing with the tightness of cerebral palsy, it didn’t seem a good combination. However, we found as my emotional stress elevated, as did the rigidity throughout my body. So, stress became another contributing factor to think about with the chiropractic adjustments. It seemed if stress was down, my body would move easier.
One major issue became guarding against my body falling out of place. After walking out of Dana’s office each week, it was a challenge to stay level. It had me concerned with my movements throughout the first few days after an appointment. Getting through the first couple days without doing something to upset my back became the challenge. After getting two or three days removed from a session, comfort allowed me to live more fully. If something occurred after that, it might be painful, but I could deal for a couple days before visiting Dana again. But, it was in the back of my mind to be cautious, so there would be less pain to endure. Those slight injuries that might take place during the week didn’t simply effect my leg length. The pain stretched further into my body. Being in that extra pain would take a toll on most everything. It made speaking, typing, and walking more challenging. Any kind of fine movement would be harder due to the pain in my body. These things didn’t become clear until we decided to raise the frequency of our appointments.
The decision to be adjusted more frequently was positive. After years of seeing Dana once weekly, we couldn’t really get my hips closer to level than an eighth of an inch. It was still too much pain for my body to be experiencing. However, that fact didn’t occur to me until recently, when I began realizing it was challenging to get comfortable in everyday life. So, we added a supplement to my diet, easing the tension in my body. Then, decided to up the adjustments to once every four or five days. Things throughout my body improved pretty dramatically. We were on the correct road, but wanted to know if it was the Muscle Ezze supplement or the adjustments making the larger impact. We then went back to chiropractic sessions once per week for a couple weeks while continuing the Muscle Ezze supplement. The thing we found was, most of the pain came back into my body. My hips fell back to being uneven an eighth of an inch from just being off a sixteenth of an inch with the increased frequency. So, we chose to return to the idea of increasing the chiropractic visits. Hoping we could advance the reduction of pain and gain equilibrium with my hips.
Our change back to more frequent adjustments has been working. Instead of simply returning to seeing Dana every four or five days, we decided to take things a step further. The choice was made to seek adjustments twice per week. That frequency works out to sessions with Dana every two or three days. Even though we have only been working a couple weeks at this new pace, the improvement has been noticeable. My body and cerebral palsy symptoms feel much better. The hips have gone from being off a sixtieth of an inch at adjusting every four or five days, to being even more consistently at the twice per week frequency. While typing this post, my fingers move better along the keyboard and experience less fatigue. The daily movements of my body have become easier, sleep and speech have also smoothed themselves out. With all this improvement Dana has also commented my body has been moving with greater ease during adjustments and inflammation throughout my body has reduced. Everything has begun feeling much better.
There seems to be a process inside every journey. One which takes a step by step process to reach the best outcome. Even through trials and side turns, if we stick with our goal, it can be accomplished. We thought chiropractic adjustments could help cerebral palsy symptoms. From the time, Dana and I began this journey, we experienced things getting better. It seemed we crossed one hurdle after the next to locate our sweet spot. All along hoping at some point my hips could achieve consistently being level. But, first we had to bring my body a long way from the pain of being off balance by an inch. It has finally come to fruition, as we reached our frequency of two adjustments per week. I can’t remember a time were my body felt better, my energy seems elevated and daily tasks a little simpler. Each person effected with cerebral palsy seems effected differently and each journey unique. But, hopefully talking about the positive impact chiropractic adjustments have made on my life can help someone else.
A Journey With Cerebral Palsy 