I went to the physio again today, and unexpectedly found myself undergoing a process called ‘dry needling‘. Usually when I go to the physio there’s the application of the heat packs, and some pretty painful hands on manipulation stuff… then sometimes some sort of ultrasonic thingy that was supposed to stimulate the mitochondria in your cells or some such shit…. occasionally there’d be hydrotherapy or pilates, or strapping or rubber band exercises or whatever seemed to be the trend at the time. Well now, seems the flavour this year is this ‘dry needling’ which it was stressed to me is not acupuncture, but stuffed if I could tell the difference.
Anyway, I found myself laying face down with my back full of needles, and feeling like I couldn’t move and after a few minutes I realised I didn’t have any method of getting their attention from the back room if I needed assistance. And it reminded me of an awful physio ordeal from about 16 years ago – not long after I hurt my neck originally in the first car accident back in 1991. I was getting physio at the PA Hospital … there weren’t many physiotherapists about at the time, and the hospital was where they sent me. I think it was maybe only my second or third visit to the physio, and they had put me into traction to stretch out my neck. This involved basically putting me in a chair that was anchored to the floor, strapping my wrists down to the chair to pull my shoulders down, and then placing my head in a harness that went under my chin and behind the back of my neck and attaching that harness to the ceiling and tensioning it tight. It was extremely uncomfortable and from memory I was supposed to be in this thing for about 15 minutes…. and there was a little timer in the room to say when time was up. Only the little timer went off and no one came to let me out of the God awful contraption… I tried to call out for help and kicked about to get someone’s attention, but I couldn’t talk as my jaw was clenched shut from the upward tension on the harness. It must have been another 10 or 15 minutes before anyone came to check on me, and by that time I was absolutely distraught with tears running down my face and in a lot of pain from being strung up to the ceiling for so long.
I haven’t thought about that incident in years, but it came back to me today as I lay there feeling not a little depressed, rather helpless and in plenty of pain. The more I think about it, the more I feel that this incident could have something to do with my absolute abhorrence for not being in control of my person, and my intense dislike for being physically overpowered by anyone…. even in jest.
I just can’t believe I am back on this road again, and feel like I am back to square one. It’s taken me over ten years to get my shit together to live with the pain levels that I have every day and to do my best to just manage with what I had and now I’m all stirred up again and I have no idea if it’s going to settle back down to ‘normal’. 🙁
.
*I’m sorry to anyone who’s actually reading this… hell… I am sick of thinking about all this pain nonsense, so I am sure anyone who’s reading this must be sick of me complaining about it too. 🙁 I promise to try and write something positively frivolous tomorrow.
.