New habit in fight against chronic back pain: a narrower stance

It’s been more than six months since my lower back and right leg started wrecking my world, one ache at a time.

At some point by April, after an MRI and two steroid shots earlier in the year, I realized my dream of this being an acute situation was over. This was chronic.

Crapola.

A super long story short: my disc herniation is a very very slight protrusion from the back of L5,S1. It’s not coming through the side, and I underscore that because my spine is tilted at 18 degrees to the left, which would usually indicate that my body is trying to get away from a side protrusion.

Except that it’s not.

Our thought is that the spinal misalignment in combination with the herniation is the cause of my daily pain, a solid 3-4 for 75 percent of the day and then a 7-9 at night.

Every day.

When I say “our,” I’m referring to my chiropractor, whom I’ve grown to trust completely. Not only does what she says make sense, I always feel better when I visit, and I sense some overall progress.

One of the things she recently noticed was how I have a wide stance with feet apart, as if they were social distancing. She said it “translates” weight (?) into my legs, I think, in a way that my spine shouldn’t.

Instead, it should all come through my pelvis, meaning I should stand like this.

And that’s a bit of back mechanics I’m changing this week.