The story of my spine

My spine has had a long and storied history.  When I was a kid, maybe around 10 or so, I fell off a horse and knocked the curve out of my spine.  I had to go to a chiropractor for quite a while to get it back.  Then in 2007 I had the car accident where I broke 6 bones in my neck and it did who knows what else to the rest of my spine.  When you break bones in your neck that tends to be the main focus.  And while I don't know for sure, we're pretty certain that the rest of my spine got thrown for a loop.  

I've always had to go to the chiropractor. (For international friends, in the US chiropractic is much more mainstream than in some countries where it's considered very fringe.)  I've had times where I've had to go multiple times per week to where I've only gone once per month.  If I were to go too long without going my SI Joint/sacrum would go out of alignment and I'd lose all my power.  I was told, by multiple coaches/trainers that I needed to strengthen my right glute.  We'd joke that I was half a lazy ass because my right glute didn't want to engage.  So I was tasked with glute exercises.  I did them all.  I did them a lot.  And it never helped.  I was told to work on my technique, just work on it and just fix it.  So I tried.  And tried and tried.  And it did improve.  I did get things better.  But it was never as good as it "should" have been.  Not for lack of me trying and for a lot of frustration on my part.  

Things never got as bad as they did for the race in Oman and then especially the race in Australia.  I've never been in that much pain before.  I've never gotten the sciatica type pain before, and that was a little scary.  

Since I've moved to Colorado Springs I've been working at finding practitioners.  It's not easy.  I'm used to my old chiropractor and I miss her like crazy.  She kept me moving and working.  I'd been seeing two different chiropractors here deciding if I liked one more than another.  I was talking with one of them asking if they did a certain type of adjustment and she didn't, but she gave me the number of a sports chiropractor (there's  such a thing?!?!).  So I called.  I went in last week.  He was very, very thorough.  Took a full history, took X-rays, did some other interesting scan.  Sat and talked with me.  Then spent the night looking at it.  Then met with me the next day to go over stuff.  He's a great teacher and went over things really thoroughly.  He's also done Ironman triathlons so understands endurance athletes and their mindset.   

Here's the findings.  I have scoliosis.  Not front to back, but I wiggle sideways.  My spine curves in such a way that it's not possible for me to engage my right glute like I wanted to.  When he told me that I literally broke into tears in his office.  YEARS I have spent thinking I wasn't working hard enough or trying hard enough and I find out today that no matter how hard I worked it would've never worked like I wanted it to.  Can you imagine what that feels like?  

Along with the scoliosis some of the bones in the spine are starting to get bone spurs and pushing and it's not too far away from bulging discs.  So the pain I was feeling in Australia wasn't sciatica type pain, it WAS sciatica pain.  And that totally sucks.  I still have goals, but I also want to be able to live a long healthy life doing physical activities and the thought that RWing could mess with that really threw my brain for a loop over the weekend.   

But today I met with the doctor and we have a plan.  He doesn't think things are so far gone that there's no coming back.  So we made a plan.  I have things to work on and guidelines to follow.  In a few months we'll see how I'm responding to treatments and decisions can be made.  It's both terrifying and hopeful.  It'll be what it'll be, but man I want to keep going.

I'm glad how I've been feeling these last few months wasn't a figment of my imagination.  I kept feeling like things were off.  I would train and I knew I was in better shape than my workout times were showing.  I thought it was maybe the elevation, the move, the lack of flat places to train, but I knew it wasn't right.  Knowing there's a reason and not just me not working hard enough is such a relief.   

Fingers crossed everybody...   Enjoy your training.  Love what you do.  You never know...