I am a pediatric nurse who worked the inpatient floor for 15 years. I have on low lumbar herniated disc that my doctors said shouldn’t necessarily be causing pain. They helpfully offered spine injections which work for many but didn’t work for me… I left my job.
I went to physical therapy. I utilized dry-needling and acupuncture. Both worked in the moment, but my pain would quickly return. I tried three different PTs with varying philosophies, but my personal pattern would be the same. Do scripted treatment exercises, try to resume workout routine (of any kind), be hurt, back on couch…I was nervous to go see Marina because she was a friend and honestly I didn’t think she would be able to help me either and, my oh my, wouldn’t that be uncomfortable.
I went anyway. I went because I woke up on my 45th birthday realizing I had been in pain since my 40th birthday and I wanted to be better and was out of options.
What I realized working with Marina is that I didn’t know HOW to move. I didn’t know how to breathe… And, I never saw how much this mattered until I started to go see my friend. My personality is to just “push”. Push hard. Be strong. Suck it up. These are valuable traits, until they aren’t. We all have coping mechanisms of the physical and emotional nature. They work. They help you survive. Until they no longer work. I know now I had let stress and my neglect of my body’s messages regarding this stress manifest into chronic pain. I had allowed it to make real changes (not the good kind) to the muscles and tendons in my body.
Marina assessed my physical orientation in a very clinical way. She help me work into moving my lower back again and more importantly helped me change my hip flexors which I now believe were causing my pain all along. Not the disc in my back, but how I had been carrying stress and moving too fast without caring for myself for a very long time.
You guessed it. While I am not pain-free, I am pretty damn close. I notice pains and have tools to fix them. I use these tools throughout the day along with a personal set of poses/exercises/stretches…. call it what you will.
If I do this work (30ish minutes), then I feel great. If I do not do this work, I hurt. It is pretty remarkable. It is easy, simple math. I do the work.
Less red wine, no prescriptions, no medical doctor, no injections. After 5 years, I am at last better.
I am better because I took a leap of faith and engaged in therapeutic yoga with Marina Zaleski. If any of my words strike a chord inside you, I encourage you to do the same.