Nina’s Neck: An extremely Anecdotal Tale!
(For Mary’s boyfriend)
Originally I was struck by a Honda Civic with a drunk at the wheel while riding my Yamaha 250cc Motorcycle at Main and Rose in Venice California. I was 20 years old and a year into a bodybuilder’s 6 day split routine. (1983)
I thought I only injured my right arm and leg. I had shattered all 3 bones in my right arm, torn out the bicep and destroyed the radial nerve. My right Femur had a butterfly fracture. I had 11 surgeries to paste it messily back together. Plus- Trauma to the neck wreaks havoc 15-20 years down the line.
As a senior in engineering at CSU Northridge I suddenly could not turn my head from stress, or so I thought. (1988) I saw chiropractors for the first time. Once as a teenager I was adjusted by Franco Colombo in his Westwood Blvd offices near Pico. My mother had found him somehow.
I got by with chiropractic assistance until about 1998. Then I severely bulged L5/S1. I was laying on the couch and the dog wanted to go out. Lazily, I twisted my upper body around to extend my hand to the door knob of the front door. That finished me off. So, aerobics instructor is done in by a dog and a couch.
It took a month for me to convince Healthcare Partners that my spine was impaired. I was so flexible I was passing their mobility tests with flying colors so it could only be a muscle spasm according to them. Finally I told them my bladder was no longer emptying. I was manually compressing it by digging my fist into my abdomen when using the “ladies.” They scheduled me for surgery the next Monday. That was April 1st, 1998.
I had completed the Yogafit Training in Hermosa Beach with Beth Shaw just prior to this incident with my L5/S1. I had been experiencing nagging nerve pain down my left leg for over 3 months prior. Even the tip of my big toes was numb at a few moments. I imagine that is the far end of the sciatic nerve path.
An Armenian surgeon did a perfect job of a laminechtomy/discechtomy. My hospital stay was flawless. I was teaching yoga 10 days later avoiding full plow. I returned to step aerobics after the advised 8 week wait.
I always had discomfort in my neck for plow and headstand. I avoided headstand. Something seemed compressed. I started having pain down my arms, numbness in my thumbs and waking during the night for neck pain.
An MRI showed my spinal cord compressed to the shape of a smiley faces grin. The same Armenian guy in Whittier said I needed surgery before the week was over or I risked sitting next to Christopher Reeves in a chair. My girlfriend’s husband was the bass player for the Band War and he was a quadriplegic from the same level of the cervical spine. My girlfriend was a24/7 nurse starting 7 days after their wedding.
I went to Cedars Sinai for a 2nd opinion.
A younger surgeon said I did not need surgery that it would be a terrible mistake. He sent me to a physical therapist that said I needed traction. This doctor then ignored any calls from my chiropractor or from me. I never saw him again.
My chiropractor demonstrated manual traction with me laying flat. My chiropractor is a slightly built Argentinean. I asked my ex-power lifter boyfriend to do what the slightly built guy did to my neck fearing liability and carrying the overhead of a Pasadena office behind Vrohman’s Books.
This was much more aggressive traction therapy. I had to ask for the release to be extremely slow. My neck would pull easily outwards and then I would experience total panic and discomfort as the traction w as removed! I could feel the encasement of my spine stretch and then going back to where it had been was really crazy weird.
So we started doing that only periodically.
I also slept in a cervical collar to keep my chin from burying into my chest as I curled up at night with my scapulas winged forward.
We built a new bed. I had a box springs and had plywood on that with a mattress. We got rid of it. Gene built a platform from Home Depot supplies. We put a thin layer of foam and a temperpedic knock off from Costco on top of that. I use a 3” diameter cervical pillow for my neck and nothing else.
I over hauled my neck “warm-up”. I used to introduce my yoga class with 4 neck side bends, some half circles and a few full circles (CW +CCW)
I started snaking the side bends, like Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles at the piano. I started forward and back head slides to promote strengthening of the muscles that retain the skull further back on top of C1. These can be called occipital muscles because they anchor on the base of the skull.
I read a book about the Feldenkrais Method. I took 4 days of intensive reformer training geared for instructors from an intelligent woman through Bally’s Total Fitness.
I realized all my activities including sleeping were characterized by chronic forward sliding of my head. I started manipulating my pelvic tilt and thoracic spine curvature, the orientation of my clavicle and scapula during walking, sitting driving and brushing teeth and washing dishes. I thought I would lose my mind because it was not going very well or anywhere very fast.
I saw a funky Korean Chinese medicine guy in Arcadia. He exclaimed that my C1 needed adjustment. I had seen several chiropractors since college and never had one mention C1. This Korean guy grabbed my head turned and tilted it oddly and then pulled. There was a loud pop that puzzled the bejeebers out of me. Then my neck felt much better! I was able to do headstands without pain. Very weird, but great!
I became a headstand fanatic.
I witnessed a wrestler doing vigorous neck strengthening by leaning on his head and rolling forward and back, side to side and round and round! These are movements not in Bikram or Yogafit and definitely taboo in the group exercise arena! I thought – “Brilliant!”
I saw a BodyWeightCulture.com Video Contest entry where the young guy did these same rolling movements against a wall in HEADSTAND!!! Even better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FjxygESNBHA
Here is one guy demonstrating neck strengthening. I can’t find the one where a guy does rolling head movements in headstand.
Found it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyB2aBAG7fI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bf8VyLfTAA
I think that is all the pieces of what I did to retrieve my neck from sliding into bedlam and needing surgery. I believe my bulges were 8 cm at C4 and C5.
But the bottom line is traction creates space vertically. Redesigning your carriage allows shifting back from sliding forward. Sleeping carefully is training the neck back to a healthy alignment as opposed to a pinched stack of bulging discs.
You really have to do this kind of thing yourself. Paying for 30-60 minutes of assistance from a service provider even daily does not address that the neck is in play 24/7.
Oh, and I spent $200 on a traction device that you can borrow. But it really just relaxes the chronically tense muscles. Gene had to pull strongly on my skull to actually get lengthening. Then I had to retrain my use of the neck and head to prevent sliding back to where the problems lay waiting.
Hope that helps!
Nina
See my videos too!
YouTube.com/NinasNiche
