I arrived at my Stanmore clinic one morning limping because of a sharp pain in my left knee, every step was agony. Adam (one of the chiropractor's) checked it and put some tape on it to provide some stability whilst I got on with my clinic. Later, when I had more time, I got another Chiropractor (Owain at Clerkenwell Chiropractic) to check it fully, with no apparent structural problems, thankfully. I am now working with Owain to rehab the knee to finally resolve the instability, however I really need to work on myself to clear out the myofascial restrictions that will have formed both this time and in the build up to this crisis.
This particular knee issue has been happening for many, many years. Over a decade ago my best friend got married, for the stag do we went paint-balling. All was going well until at the start of one game I was sprinting for cover, my left ankle gave way and I fell forwards. Apparently, though I do not remember, it was a spectacular dive and roll into cover that my friends thought was really impressive; I didn't care as I was screaming in agony. I had to be helped off game area and that was the end of my day paint-balling. Unfortunately I was the driver, and it was a manual car. I had to drive home in rush hour through London in a manual car using my injured foot on the clutch. That night I put a compression bandage and elevated it, putting cold towels on it and that was really all the rehab I did at the time (this was a long time before I was a body worker). Oh, and there's going to be an emotional element to it as it caused me a lot of grief at work because I took a week off work as I couldn't drive, but that's a different story.
So the reason I'm writing this is that the cause of a lot of my issues come from an ankle that was badly hurt over 10 years ago that I did nothing about. This time it was the knee that has been hurting, and this has flared up periodically over the last 10 years. I've usually popped pills and the pain goes after a couple of days, so that means it had gotten better or that is what I thought was the case.
This time I noticed something: I could feel the whole of the left side of my body tighten up. Having seen a number of Chiropractors and Osteopaths over the years I am aware that I have a functionally short left leg, which means that my pelvis is twisted that causes low back pain, that then travels up into my neck, head and then my jaw and then to my sinus and the dreaded pain that that causes me.
This time I could feel that there had been a preceding tightness in my lower leg running up from the outer side of my ankle, the knee was then being pulled out of place because of that. This then causes the hip to tighten, pulling inwards causing tension across the pelvic muscles, causing the Sacro-iliac joint to grumble. The left side of my ribs then collapse down and a muscle in my back threatens to spasm. I can then feel that the left shoulder is pulled out of place, which I ignore as it's always a bit sore but that's only because of my job, it then hits the base of the skull and over to my jaw, which causes the sinus to become incredibly painful.
So this time I'm going to do something about it. I've already had a couple of very productive rehab sessions with Owain (thelondonchiro.com) who I'm lucky enough to work with at Clerkenwell Chiropractic and he has been putting me through my paces (and introducing me to the torture device that is a red bouncy hemisphere [pictured]) and I'm really glad to have been doing it. Yoga has definitely helped, as it has all the way through, and the wonderful Bridget (bridgeyoga.co.uk) is really good at making sure I do not hurt myself. I've been working on myself with some Myofascial stretches as well, but think I really need to find someone local to me to help out more. In the meantime I've been having more massages, which are always very nice. In combination all of these approaches have been really helping me.
