Allopathic and Chiropractic Medicine — Together Again!

Saturday, April 16th — I had a visit with my rheumatologist, Dr. H. Arthur Silverman, at Scripps Clinic, on Thursday, having not seen him since December, before my journey with chiropractic began. I needed a new prescription from him for Norco (yes, I am still taking opioid painkillers, although not nearly so many as I did a couple of months ago), so I made sure I got the prescription before I told him I was going to a chiropractor. I suppose I thought he might fling open the door of the examining room and tell me never to darken it again, or something like that. I was actually surprised at how receptive he was.  He sat down and said, “Tell me about it,” and I did. When I finished, Dr. H. Arthur Silverman said, “Well, you’re looking terrific; whatever is happening, it’s all good if you’re feeling so much better. Just keep it up, and I’ll see you in six months!”

It was sort of anticlimactic, actually.  Yesterday, I had said to David Klein, “Wonder what I can say to my rheumatologist tomorrow.” And David said, “How about bye-bye?” No, not just yet; but I’m keeping an open mind.  Maybe someday.  I figure, if I can be comfortable at some point without taking any pain medication, I will be ready to say bye-bye to my  rheumatologist, who has been really helpful to me up to now. Dr. H. Arthur Silverman couldn’t have been kinder or more supportive to me over the past few difficult years, and I appreciate all he’s done for me.

Not just yet, as I said.  Here it is almost midnight on a Saturday night, and I’m in the middle of one of my Midnight Perambulations. That’s what I call it when the peripheral neuropathies in my feet (caused, I suppose, by nerve damage during the last two hip revisions) start giving me electric shocks and long, deep aches. I can’t lie down quietly, and now I can’t really even sit comfortably because there are those toes, twingling away. “Dem toes, dem toes, dem daaam toes…”  Now, I take Lyrica for the neuropathies (thank you, Dr. Silverman!); and it helps, in that I only have to Perambulate about twice a week now instead of every night, as I did last fall. And I don’t have to cry about the pain any more. But I am hoping that the chiropractic adjustments will eventually free some poor little nerves that have been SUBLUXATED — love that word! — trapped between the vertebrae, and maybe the toes won’t twingle any more.  Here I was, all happy because I have gotten back some of the sensation in the sole of my right foot.  I should have kept quiet about that, maybe I jinxed myself.

So, right at this point in time, I guess I have a foot in both camps, as they say.  I’m not giving up the drugs, but I’m getting as much chiropractic treatment as I can. Let’s see what happens.  It’ll be a surprise.