Thursday, November 21, 2013


A few weeks ago, I was practicing Jiujitsu, and I experienced a terrible stomach cramp during one of the moves. After it eased, I tried the move again, and I experienced the same excruciating pain. It was temporary, but I knew that something was wrong.

Since I thought it was related to my fibroids, when I went to my next acupuncture treatment (that I'm using for pain management for the pain caused by the fibroids) I told my acupuncturist about the stomach cramp.

She examined me, in particular my lower back and my hips, and she discovered that I my general alignment was off. I was slightly leaning more to my right side. The reason this misalignment wasn't causing me direct pain is because I've been kind of leaning to my right (like when I sit and type) for a long time, so my muscles have kind of been 'learning' that type of posture.

She did a bit of IMS (intra-muscular stimulation), which is bloody painful (though only for a few seconds) to try and loosen up my muscles, and she gave me a few exercises to do to help me straighten up my posture.

After a couple of weeks of trying out those exercises, I'm beginning to loosen up a bit and straighten out.

Since she helped me with that problem, when I went to see her on Wednesday, I decided to tell her about my wrist pain. I was sure it was just a sprain although my wrist did look slightly deformed (my bone was jutting out - though I wasn't sure if it was my bone or just that my wrist was a weird shape in general -- that's how bad body image can get!).

It turns out, I wasn't imagining it -- I had dislocated my wrist.

Unfortunately, I waited so long to tell her or anyone about it that my muscles have kind of stiffened in that position, so she was not able to immediately pop it back into place. She's working on loosening up my muscles. I hope that she'll be able to pop it back in after just one more session. It's rather painful.

The thing that I've learned from going for acupuncture treatment as well as a bit of physiotherapy is that muscle memory really matters. I've always thought about muscle memory in a positive way (keep doing certain movements and you'll start to do them automatically - with weight lifting and with MMA training). However, these treatment sessions have made me realize that it works the other way too.

The repeated actions of sitting leaning a certain way or even just crossing my left leg over my right, has resulted in the development of my muscles in a certain way.

The reason why we're working on my spinal alignment as a result of a stomach cramp is because having my back straighter and my muscles properly balanced will take pressure off my body. This will in turn reduce some of the pressure around my abdominal area -- which is already cramped up because of my fibroids.

It was really interesting. I think I've always had fairly good posture, but I know it can improve. So now I'm really paying attention to how I sit and stand. I find myself automatically leaning to the right, but now I can correct it so that my shoulders are more square instead of lopsided.

Every little effort helps!


  1. Hi A, Interesting post. I really try to work on body symmetry. It's actually a main goal in my exercises. You're smart to focus on them, especially at your age to prevent decades-long issues from escalating, as described in the above image. :D

  2. Yes, very interesting and a little scary. I tend to fall into a "slumped" position at my computer and even have a post it on my monitor that says "Sit Up Straight." I hope you get the wrist back to proper function quickly.

