ANECDOTE OF THE JAR
(Keywords: ANECDOTE OF THE JAR, chiropractic help, Developmental Hip Dysplasia, Tofu Nutrition ) ANECDOTE OF THE JAR. It should be remember that anecdotes are just that: anecdotes. They have absolutely no scientifical validation. Having said that, behind every anecdote, often there lurks a kernel of truth, a real gem. And then sometimes it's pure hogwash! Only by placing our theories under the scientific spotlight, without prejudice and manipulation of the statistics, can we sift the grain from the chaff. The famous Dutch artist MC Escher's geese know how to find their grain without the use of stats. If you ever get to The Hague, don't miss the Escher museum.
Mrs B is one of those tall, willowy beautiful Dutch women, but with a problem. Severe facial pain and suboccipital headaches. It all started 14 years ago for no obvious reason. She's a top waterpolo player, but it got so bad she had to stop. When she first consulted me a year ago she was taking 8 antiinflammatories and painkillers on average every week. And had been for years.That was a year ago. Today she came for her regular six weeks consultation, a different person. She has had only one attack in the last six months and is taking no medication. The problem? A severe fixation in her left TMJ anatomy. The jaw joint can cause severe facial pain and migraine headaches. It's often "gepaard" as we say in Dutch - tethered with another horse in front of a buggy - with neck pain, because the sensory nucleus of the jaw joint lies in the upper neck. In medical terms, it's called a Trigeminal neuralgia, one of the most devastating pains. It literally leads sufferers to suicide.
TMJ ANATOMY ...
If you follow this column with any regularity, you'll know that chiropractors adjust the cervical spine of the dizzy patient with extra special care. Especially young women in the 35-50 bracket. Mrs S consulted me a month ago with a multiple problems in her neck, shoulder, a Tietzes syndrome (breastbone pain) and hip pain. And a serious attack of vertigo three years ago which never totally let up. The so-called Hallpike Dix test for an Benign Positional Paroxysmal Vertigo BPPV was slightly positive. So I decided to give her the Barndt-Daroff exercises (by registering for Chiropractic Tips (free) you'll get the exercises in an email), avoid her neck and treat her other conditions first. It was most encouraging that she reported that within two weeks the last remaining vestiges of dizziness had completely cleared. HIP ARTHRITISMr P, 52-years old, had a mild case of Hip Dysplasia that was missed when he was born. Since he was about 45 years old he has increasing stiffness in the right hip, with onset of pain three years ago. It's complicated by a leg length inequality, and Scheurermanns disease in the lumbar spine. He had been coming once a month for Chiropractic mangagement of his arthritic hip and low back pain.There have been no miracles, but he says it's definitely considerably better than when he started one year ago. Simply stopping the progressive deterioration can be considered a success. He may still have a hip replacement one day, but it will be at least be only one. They only last about 15 years.
Developmental Hip Dysplasia ...
ANECDOTE OF THE JAR. Sometimes reading sites like this you might get the impression that we cure everything, that we think there is no further need for medicine, when it comes to backs. Not so. Three weeks ago I had three new patients, all three with serious low back and leg pain. All three had the usual history: years of low back pain that was neglected. And then the sword of Damocles fell! Sudden onset of severe pain radiating down the leg. What are the bad signs of a serious disc injury?
All three had several of these signs. After 10 days two were advised by their doctors to go for an operation. I think too soon, but they had severe leg pain. The third patient is doing great. The pain in her leg is nearly over, and all the tests are almost negative. If you have a serious disc injury, and you really want to avoid surgery: Give your chiropractor a good three weeks. We are not God! 10 days for a serious injury is insufficient. It would have been better not to have started. The husband of one has started with treatment for his neck. His neck and shoulder are much improved after a five treatments. He tells me his wife is progressingly nicely. But she will miss at least four months of work he tells me. The surgeon will only allow her to go back to work in September. Could I have done better, had she been more patient? Perhaps.
LOW BACK PAINANECDOTE OF THE JAR. A 17-year old young woman consulted me 6 weeks ago with acute right low back pain. The pain started 9 months ago after a long trip- for no obvious reason except that sitting is difficult for many people. Despite various treatments it never went over.It was good to see her today. No pain for three weeks. What made the condition problematic was the "crossed-sciatic" sign: lifting her left leg gave her right low back pain. That is never a good sign. That was in reality nothing problematic, except that nine months pain is nine months pain: it's not good for a 17- year old to have a diagnosis of chronic low back pain. The sacroiliac tests were also strongly positive in the beginning, so there was some doubt over the diagnosis: a lumbar disc or a sacroiliac condition? In the end it made no difference. She has no pain. What worries me a little: she's already not doing the exercises faithfully. That's not a good omen...
She had a little understood condition all those years ago: Developmental Hip Dysplasia. It was not well cared for and the result was thus inevitable: Two new hips. That was fairly successful, but her strange gait upset her lumbar spine. A happy lady, and a relieved chiropractor. Het gaat goed! Prima. She's delighted to be able to walk again without pain.
TAKING HORMONES?ANECDOTE OF THE JAR:A HORRID DEPRESSING DAY. Mrs J has been a patient for some years, a favourite lady. But she never told me her doctor had prescribed her hormones for the menopause. My fault, I suppose, I should have asked. The research is unequivocal: they cause cancer with a big C. CANCER. And you're at high risk from stroke. Two weeks ago she went in for a routine mammogram, only it turned out not to be routine. Double amputation next week. Taking hormones? DON'T. In Holland, we say 'levensgevaarlijk' - deadly. Opvliegers, the hot flushes have been experienced since time immemorial. Far better than the Big C. Interestingly, women in the East who eat a lot of Tofu nutrition, have far less hot flushes due to vegetable hormones that apparently have no deleterious side effects. Just a thought. LUMBAR STENOSISANECDOTE OF THE JARA 62 year old man consulted me six weeks ago with severe pain down his right leg. It was so bad that he could barely walk because placing weight on that leg was extremely painful. It's good psychology: I ask every patient what they most are missing and want to get back to. It might be tennis, or gardening, or ... in his case, he wanted to get back to work. He is a one man painting contractor, and hadn't been able to work for three months. Strange at 62 wanting to get back to work so badly. Not so strange: ten years ago he lost his wife to breast cancer (one in eight women in the Netherlands) and, what kept him sane, was continuing to work. He was becoming depressed. Research shows if you stay at home for six months, you'll never return to work. He was starting on the antidepressants, sleeping tablets with their nasty anticholinergic side effects, dual antiinflammatory drugs ... What characterised his condition was bending to the right, and slightly backwards, produced sharp, searing pain down the leg. A case of CHIROPRACTIC HELP Lumbar Stenosis ... the Slump test was strongly positive. Yesterday he appeared for his appointment and I wasn't quite sure whether to be pleased or not: his spectacles were spattered with paint. He'd worked the whole previous day without pain. Whilst he's not 'cured' and still has some numbness and tingling in the leg, Slump his negative, he can walk and he can work. A happy man. A happy chiropractor too! Miracles we do at once, the impossible takes a little longer.
TENNIS ELBOW.ANECDOTE OF THE JARMrs K, a 65 year old lady came in this morning for her two maintenance check up. Her first consult was nearly 12 months ago: a difficult case of Tennis Elbow, 7 months pain despite various treatments. One of my favourite conditions: within two weeks the pain was 50% less, four weeks 80% less, two months completely gone. She comes in for maintenance and for some TLC for a long standing low back condition. Odd that today patients find their way into a chiropractor's office with pain in the elbow, rather than a potentially far more serious low back condition. The times are a-changing - your local chiropractor is a lot more than a back specialist. She brought me a home-made plum pudding for Christmas! Nothing will please your doctor, chiro or dentist more than such a spontaneous gift. If you don't bake, consider giving your Chiropractor one of Bernard Preston's Chiropractic books for Christmas. Read it first!
Tennis elbow ...
ARTHROSCOPY KNEE SURGERY
Mr van den B, 77 years old, consulted me two months ago with severe inner knee pain. He had great difficulty walking, and bending the knee gave sharp stabs. The pijn started 4 months earlier after he had to do a lot of bending after a big storm blew thru Holland, dropping 300 sticks and branches in his garden. 4 orthopedic tests were positive. The Drop Home, Medial McMurrays, MCL test and Clarke's test. All of which was a bit confusing: what was the primary source of pain? Most obvious was a painful click when straightening the knee with McMurray's test. The MRI scan was not pretty. The medial meniscus was badly damanged. Within three weeks of the start of the treatment, all four tests were negative and he could walk much better. But pressing the clutch in his Model T Ford remains painful, and he had some residual pain at night, sometimes quite a lot. His doctor has persuaded him to go for an operation, "because it could happen again". Whilst no miracle, for a problem that he had for so long, I was very encouraged with his progress. He and his doctor not. I wish him well. It's a difficult question: when should one accept a condition, with it's limitations, instead of continually wanting to be perfectly young and able to do everything again? Sometimes we suffer with pain that we needn't experience, and sometimes after even more complex treatment, the condition becomes even worse. The horns of a dilemma. Having just lost a good friend, a very fit 60 year old man, who went in for a minor procedure, and had a stroke and died the next day, I'm wary of the man with the knife in his hand! But good surgery can be a wonder, the risks albeit greater.
ARTHROSCOPY KNEE SURGERY ... HIP ARTHRITIS and LUMBAR STENOSIS.ANECDOTE OF THE JARMrs P is an 82 year old woman with a long history of low back pain and hip arthritis. A hopeless muddle of confusing signs and symptoms. After suffering for two years with left buttock pain that radiating down her left leg, she was eventually told that the cause was hip arthritis, and a hip replacement would fix her pain. However, the operation did not one jot for the pain in her LEFT lower leg. Eventually the hip surgeon admitted that the pain in her leg was not from her hip (which it wasn't) but from her back. Indeed. That was three years ago. She first consulted me two months ago, very miserable, and unable to walk even ten minutes. Unable to do even basic shopping, she was faced with an old age home, her worst dread. A careful examination revealed three things:
Without all three I wouldn't have given her a chance. So she did her exercises faithfully, and followed my instructions to the letter. What I was expecting to be the worst hurdle was the spinal stenosis causing pain down her left leg. Actually it responded quite quickly, within a month it was 50% less and now she has almost no left leg pain.
We are now into the third month of care, and Mrs P is very pleased. More so than I am oddly. She still can only walk with painkillers (for the right arthritic hip), but for her the treatment has made one enormous difference. With said painkillers she can now walk for half an hour, long enough to do her basic shopping. We're keeping the old age home at bay ...
Enjoy reading? Don't mind a bit of spice and controversy? Perhaps you'll enjoy this free chapter from my next (fourth) book A FAMILY AFFAIR.
VERTIGOANECDOTE OF THE JARMrs B celebrated her 85th last week. Her's is the next anecdote of the jar. She proudly told me today that all her children, grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren (all boys) were present. Number ten is on the way, and the big question is whether the football team is going to be all male, or is the goalie or striker going to be a girl?! Perhaps more important, she said that she has had only one attack of vertigo this year - in comparison with 7 last year. And she gets it badly - a minimum of three days flat on her back, any move making her terribly giddy. The difference? She does her Brandt and Daroff exercises EVERY SINGLE DAY she proudly said. You can download them for free from Chiropractic Tips, or if you can read Dutch, then
the Brandt en Daroff exercises for duizelig /vertigo.
- attributed to Mark Twain.
I received some intriguing correspondence for ANECDOTE OF THE JAR today, let it be said not from some quack but a Chiropractor of thirty-five years experience, and some eminence in the profession: |
