Inspirational Ivy II - Beating Foot Drop and Sciatica, and Getting Healthier
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM
Ivy had serious sciatica with foot drop. She had knee and other injuries. She was in awful pain. In this kind of foot drop, the nerve cannot serve the muscles enough to lift the foot to walk normally. The toes drag. The foot hangs limply and slaps the ground with each step.
Commonly, someone with foot drop is put in a leg brace for life. One surgery done for foot-drop fuses the ankle so the foot is rigid and doesn't hang. Other problems come over years from changes in walking mechanics. For the terrible pain, patients are often directed to drugs and surgery.
We changed that:
- Monday's post Inspirational Ivy told the essentials of stopping the cause of the sciatic pain and nerve impingement, rather than treat the results with unhealthy means. Links to specific methods are there.
- Sciatica, disc damage, facet pain, and impingement are results, not the cause of pain. They are not a diagnosis. When you have them, find what is causing them. Then you can reverse the cause: The Cause of Disc and Back Pain
- The post How Often Should You Be Healthy? explains when and how to apply it.
"Over the past few days, I have been very conscious of my movements and, hey presto, I have not experienced any tingling or pain. I have to take total responsibility for every movement I make. I am constantly telling myself 'Think before you go to the fridge or need to pick up something off the floor - think lunges.'"I gave her simple gait retraining. Ivy quickly discarded the cane she had used for nearly 7 months.
Ivy went on to teach several neighbors in her community how to fix their own pain. One story is posted in Each One Teach One.
In April 2006, Ivy wrote,
"It is nearly 5 months since I started your wonderful programme so I thought it was time that I gave you an update. I am fit and well, the sciatica has disappeared, if I get a little niggle in that area, I ask myself as to what have I done wrong, my left knee (IT Band) is no longer a problem, my balance has improved immensely and the "dropped" foot is great, in fact, when I go for my daily walk, I no longer hear the plop, plop of which I hated. I can also now wear "normal" shoes.
"Without your help and support and putting me on the right road so to speak, I would still be in constant pain plus making the chiropractor richer. Please note, I no longer go to him for treatment - I DON'T NEED HIM."
At age 70, Ivy is steadily improving strength and range of motion using healthy movement for daily life. She is eating healthful vegetarian food. January 2007 brought this note:
"The reason for this e-mail being that I feel somewhat excited re a remark made by the son of one of my fellow villagers. His very words being, "How did you become the woman that you are now. I have watched you over the past couple of years - when I first met you, you were obviously in a lot of pain, what is your secret?"
"I also sent the photos to my son and daughter-in-law who live in the US, they too, could see the improvement - they thought I looked great. Mind you, over that 2 year period, I gradually lost 20 lbs."
What about Ivy's e-mail that I mentioned in the last post about the new hip stretch? I'm out of room again. Watch for the next post.
Photo of "milagro" (miracle) by Daquella manera
Labels: disc, facet joints, feet, fix pain, iliotibial band, injury, knee, lunge, nutrition, readers inspiring story, sciatica, shoes, spirit, squat
2 Comments:
At Monday, September 03, 2007 2:42:00 PM,
Anonymous said…
Dear Jolie,
I have had problems with my lower back since long time ago when a placed my young son who was sleeping into an upper bunk bed.
I do not like to go to Doctors appointments so I somehow let things get over by themselves. Recently (3 years ago) my problems increased and I had some back spasms that drove me into an Orthopedic Doctor office for treatment (drugs). I was able to recover in a matter of weeks and then have some other events every 7 or 8 months.
They wanted me to take a MRI to see how was my back, as they could not see anything clear from my x rays, but I always refuse because I thought they would tell me that I needed a surgery and I am afraid of that.
I came up with your books in the net and bought most of them (regarding exercises, stretches and bending) to try fixing my back problems and I even lost 40 pounds during the last year.
Maybe I have not been a good student because I have ended up with a bigger problem. We are going to a new sport Club near our house and I started playing tennis with my kids and wife but I notice that my back was hurting afterward in a little different way. I kept doing my 30 min walk on a treadmill and a 22 min static bike during the week. I did this for two weeks and then thought I would stop playing tennis and I would only swim. That day at night my back was hurting even more than the other days up to the point that I could not sleep with a lot of pain in my right leg. In the past I suffered sciatica on my left leg and now it was the other one.
Next day (Sunday) I asked my wife to take me to a near hospital as I could not take the pain, they gave some drugs and sent home, on Monday I went to see this doctor that told me to take a MRI and yesterday he told me that I have two herniated discs
The old injury is between L5–S1 to the left and it is somehow small but the new one is between L4–L5 and the doctor says this one is big even affecting the spine cord thru he yellow ligaments and in his opinion this one will not recover with traditional treatment (drugs).
I have not been able to walk for a week, as soon as I get up and walk the pain on my right thigh and knee is so great that I have to seat immediately. The doctor says he has to take off the discs but after reading a lot I am even more afraid to do it, so I have given me another ten day treatment with drugs to see if a start recovering to be able to start your exercise program and learning new posture techniques.
I have tried to start with the prop low on elbows (face down) before getting out of bed (pages 69¬–71 on Fix your own pain). But this hurts a little on my lower back and right thigh as I have been bending my legs (lying face up) because I could get some pain relief in this position; my hips are a little tight. Then if I try the pectoral and trapezius stretch I cannot hold my self too long standing up.
I do believe I can recovered and avoid the surgery, also I feel inspired after reading the post Inspirational Ivy. I just ask you to give me some additional advice to start my recovery.
Sorry for my English, I hope you can answer back and understand what I have posted here
Best regards
Fernando from Mexico City
At Tuesday, September 04, 2007 12:32:00 PM,
Jolie Bookspan, M.Ed, PhD, FAWM said…
Ay Fernando, sorry you're going through this. Let's see about fixing it quickly. Following are a few quick things and links, then e-mail me and we'll make sure we got everything.
It is common to do good exercises then go back to old habits that harm discs - bad hamstring stretches ( Sitting Badly Isn't Magically Healthy by Calling It a Hamstring Stretch), abdominal crunches and other forward bending exercises, bad sitting on a bike, and other exercises popular in gyms ( Is Bad Martial Arts Good Exercise? with helpful comments from Kip showing continued improvement and Common Exercises Teach Bad Bending). Then bad bending around the house harms discs more. Doing "back exercises" is not what fixes the back - instead look at how you move during all you do. Then you won't have repeated events, as you mentioned. See pages 56-60 in the Fix Pain book.
Good work finding my books and losing 40 pounds. If you can do that, you can fix this. You mentioned a few things that give me clues that you may have added something else. With regular disc pain, most people cannot sit; it hurts more. With overarching the lower back, pain is common after doing things standing - the different pain you mentioned after tennis. People sit for relief. Good that you did the 'face down' before getting out of bed. This should reduce disc pain right then. If it hurts, usually it is from overarching the lower back. Bending your leg up reduces this. Probably why the pain reduces. In the Fix Pain book, page 100 (stenosis paragraph) explains why overarching adds to disc pain and what to do. Page 73 shows overarching when lifting a child overhead - as you mentioned lifting to the top bunk. The overarching (hyperlordosis) problem is often overlooked in disc pain. People unfortunately have surgery to remove the disc, but return to overarching and pain.
Getting an MRI or other test never means you have to do anything. A disc showing on MRI does not always mean it is what is hurting (important to know) or that you need surgery. An x-ray or MRI or blood test is just to get part of the information. You have choice. Discs heal. You do not have to rush into *any* treatment that you do not like or want.
Your English is great. If you prefer, I have several native Spanish speaking patients who got better using this. I can ask them if you can contact them to compare notes on how to use my method right. Long ago, I lived in Guerrero, south of you in D.F. and enjoyed living my life in Spanish, a fun language. After a cart ran over my foot, the clinic x-ray handed me la factura ('the invoice' for non-Spanish readers). In the noisy clinic, I heard fractura (that my foot was broken). They never saw someone so disappointed at a bill before. Let's get you better so you can laugh at long-healed discs. Sin factura.
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