Back Trouble

Nicole has suffered from chronic back pain since high school. She was in a car accident when she was in 10th grade where she was hit by a motorist while she was crossing a main street for a pool class during the middle of the day. It was not an official street crossing, but it was a place where all the students crossed. After being struck by the car, she fell on her backpack and was very upset with the driver. He offered to take her to the hospital but she told him to get lost. They didn't have health insurance, and her parents didn't know what could be done or what resources were available to them, so she just dealt with it. She was in serious pain at dinner that night. Her mom took her to the Chinese doctor who gave her some stinky medicine to put on her stomach, but unfortunately that didn't take away the pain.

She has gone to several chiropractors over the years who have helped somewhat, but no real change to her condition has occurred. She just lives with some aches all the time, not sleeping as well as she could, and it sometimes affects her mood as well.

At the Sunnyvale Art and Wine Festival we ran into a chiropractor who uses the most objective means we have seen by a chiropractor to analyze the spine. She made an appointment on Thursday last week, and he took xrays and did some other tests. He has sent us a copy of the xrays of her neck and spine, along with what a normal neck and spine look like. The first image below is what a normal spine looks like. The second one is Nicole's spine. Look at the symmetry and alignment - you can see the doctor drew straight lines through the aligned segments:


Nicole's spine:
Obviously, her alignment is bad and her spine doesn't support her weight the way it should.
Below is an xray of Nicole's neck (left) and a normal neck (right):


Here again, the spacing between vertebrae is not even, causing the discs to wear unevenly and could lead to grinding.

We have prayed a lot about this in our home fellowship. Hopefully this chiropractor can help bring some real healing to Nicole.