Warren was lying face down on my portable table as I began a manual scanning of his back, testing the tone and texture of his muscles, and gauging the flexibility of the joints of his spine and ribs.
He commented that the gentle pressure of my hand on his left, upper back, had elicited a mild numbness in his left arm. The numbness, he shared, was something that he experienced at times from lying on that side at night. I let him know that there was an obvious stiffness in his upper back that was a cause of his symptoms.
Lying on his left side, with his right shoulder rolled back and his right hip rotated forward, I felt his mildly torqued spine. Just as in a chain necklace, held at one end, and twisted from the other, if a kink exists in the spine, it is exaggerated, and becomes apparent. Simultaneously, while my hand felt, and moved from flexible spine toward the apex of a kink, Warren experienced a transition from painless to tender. As my hand crossed the apex of the kink and moved back into a flexible area on the other side, Warren felt the tenderness disappear.
A thorough spinal manipulation followed; restoring mobility to stiff joints, from occiput to sacrum.
The first half of Warren’s two-fer consisted of his direct experiencing, and learning more about what was going on in his body, rather than just getting a report from the doctor. The second half was manipulative treatment to improve his spinal function.
Potentially, inspired by the real connection to the stiffness and pain in his back, the door swings open for the three-fer; the opportunity to both discuss the causes of physical restriction and discomfort, and to consider self-care methods for restoring health.
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