Does anyone know if a chiropractor can help me with me with weak and painful joints? sometimes my knees can't even hold me up without feeling like they are ripping apart and the pain is unbearable. Or my whole body aches and I can't move without getting injured. I have just found out that this is most likely the condition I have but unfortunately nothing has been confirmed yet so I am trying to get answers anywhere at this point, it's painful to live like this and I used to be an active 19 year old but now I feel 90 years old and ache 24/7. Any help is appreciated, thank you.
Experiences with a chiropractor and i... - Fibromyalgia Acti...
Experiences with a chiropractor and is it worth it?
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Lainey02
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Chose your chiropractor very carefully. I couldn’t do without mine, but it took a while to find one who understood fibro and the need to adjust the pressure used accordingly. I always come out refreshed and feeling on cloud nine. It may take several treatments in quick succession to make a difference, after which it should be possible to increase the time between treatments. The one proviso - fibro is different for all of us and what works for one may not work for another. Good luck I hope you find it helps.
Like Dinkie said "Chose your chiropractor very carefully" make sure your chiropractor is well qualified, good reviews [in the right area, especially!] I was lucky in that respect, excellent qualifications, my mother and I always felt good after a session. I had a brilliant ten years with him. Unfortunately after two major seizures, I have epilepsy I smashed my chest, too dangerous to carry on🙄 there are suspect chiropractor's around, one about ten miles from me! Be very careful, IF you find one like my mate, keep your claws into him/her, like gold dust! I would recommend mine but you are not in Northern Ireland?
I went to a chiropractor for some years and I found that within 24 hours the joints had gone back to their original positions due to my muscles. It was great while it lasted! On the other hand a chiropractor did help me enormously after a car crash that gave me a C7 disc problem.
My therapy tutor was of the opinion that chiropractors should be avoided as they do not cure problems permanently and can use force. Perhaps a physiotherapist, fascial release practitioner or someone who does positional release? As a therapist in Body Realignment, Scarwork and Bonework (mostly retired) I have learnt that it is possible to fix problems with no force and if the body fixes itself it remains fixed (generally). Forcing a bone in and out of soft tissue just causes it to come out of position more easily as it wears a track through the tissue, there needs to be something which prevents the bone from moving again not a repeated, forced movement.
Completely agree with Penny. If your muscles need strengthening then a PT would be better.
If you can get hold of one, OR afford one privately🙄🙃😤
Unfortunately, here in the US, we don’t have a choice
Here in N.I. we have what is called a 'waiting list' which is 🙄in length?😤🙄
And no chance of speeding up with regular phone calls to demonstrate the need, I spose?
Nah! Then they get annoyed? further down the list🙄
*sigh* - I spose that's the downside of a system that is very "just"/"fair" (apart from people with more money being able to "buy" better health; but that's always the case). Upside compared to Germany is I have to pay for most OTC meds/supps myself, even if my doc prescribes them.
Completely understand. I’m from Liverpool.
👍👍
Our GP recommended a local chiropractor and she has now left. Her replacement is just as good, and gentle. They might do an x-ray. If they don't have the facility, you should probably request this from your GP, who might agree to send you to a specialist, and, in the meantime, perhaps get a walking frame to help you walk/get out of bed. Otherwise, the other replies here are useful. Good luck.
I too thoroughly recommend fascial release.
I agree any PT for us usually needs to be gentle. I've also heard that chiropractors have varying skills, and that gentler ones that listen can help.
Adding to the alternatives mentioned:
Normal PTs always hurt & harmed me. First an osteopath for 5 months, then an acupressurist for 15 months helped me get really all of my local pains down to zero. I have to keep them down with exercises, yoga & stretching tho.
Both the osteopath and the acupressurist used various methods.
Osteopathy can for instance involve Counterstrain, Positional Release Technik PRT/Jones Technique - gentler than trigger pointing, craniosacral therapy = CST, visceral therapy, parietal therapy.
The acupressurist was TCM-influenced, also did some osteopathy, Scar- and Bonework, trigger pointing when I got up to it...
A painful treatment for my skin that still helped was connective tissue massage.
I'm sorry for you Lainey , I've been there.You've said that it seems that Fibro is the condition you have , have you been given you full diagnosis yet by a Rheumatologist as well as a GP?
Some people have Fibromyalgia on its own , which is hard as it is , but others can have a few joint or tissue related issues that cause the Fibro, and whatever else they have , to flare each other up.
My Fibro is part of a complex of health issues including Ehler's Danlos Syndrome , this means my joints are weak because they are very mobile and they often sublux or dislocate. That in turn causes a reaction in my Fibro pain points.
Both conditions bash heads with each other .
Many people with Fibromyalgia find they have other syndromes or a complex pattern of symptoms ( physical or mental/ neurological) that need to be looked at together to help get the right treatment and support.
It took a long time for me to get all my diagnosis as unfortunately doctors kept missing it or they weren't looking at me as a whole person and so not joining the dots.
It might be a good idea to get back to your GP and get a referral to a Rheumatologist with experience in Fibro and Hypermobility before seeing a Chiropractor.
Ask them to check where you are on the Hypermobility scale with a simple test ( Beighton test ). Its worth checking if you have fibro and feel weakness in the joints as well in case the hypermobility is adding to your symptoms.
Knowing if there are any other issues to keep an eye on and having a more comprehensive diagnosis is a better place to start from when you begin to think about getting medical and non medical help.
Sometimes we can have a bad experience in our treatment not because the practitioner or doctor themselves was not good but because gave a treatment that didn't help because they didn't have a full idea of what issues they were working with.
You may find going to a Rheumatology Physiotherapist and getting the right gentle exercises may help you more . The right gently paced exercise can help increase the strength in your joints and muscles while mildly reducing the effect they have on your flares in pain or fatigue. Ask to see the one with the most interest in Fibromyalgia though as physical therapy can sometimes be a bit hit and miss and build up whatever changes you do physically carefully , don't work outside your comfort zone , it will increase on its own , pushing it doesn't help.
They may send you to a chiropractor.
The Doctors may choose to give you a combination of medication that can help with the pain or fatigue.
I found going to an Occupational Therapist with my physio helped me with my individual needs but any treatments or complementary therapies I have beyond that were only really beneficial to start when the therapists knew what conditions they were working with.
Each person is different in their symptoms and their needs.
There are treatments that will work wonders for one Fibro Fighter that will leave another one in tears.
In the meantime, have a look at yourself and how you move when you do certain physical activities. Improving your posture can help in all the tasks you do , although it can be hard at first, its true with any health condition that the pain and fatigue has usually made us crunch up to protect ourselves and then we often stand , sit or walk in a way that can add to our symptoms. Posture changes can help a lot.
Take care , and take heart , you will get there in the end and you sound like a very strong and proactive person so you have the tools to find a successful solution.
I can't thank you enough for all of this information. I have been trying to get diagnosed for many painful months but unfortunately with covid everything health related is backed up or the waiting list can be over a year.
I think many Doctors and GP's don't know what they are looking for and are just checking off what It isn't instead of what it could be and to take the next steps to diagnose me. I have been to a rheumatologist and nothing serious came back but in all honesty I really can't remember what I was being tested for, I think it was breathing but my memory loss is bad. I am going to be going back to all the GP's and doctors until I get an answer and find out what I have and how to manage and deal with it but until then I really appreciate all this advice and take care and thank you for being so kind. 👍
"Rheumatology Physiotherapist and getting the right gentle exercises"
"Funnily" I had the feeling in the rheum./fibro clinic that the physiotherapists don't understand fibromyalgia much. But they did respect me saying no. Esp. after electrotherapy gave me a set of seizures over the next 24h as I'd thought and said, whilst a rheum. doc and the physiotherapist thought it wouldn't. I was "dramatically" wheeled back to my bed in a wheelchair, LOL.
"There are treatments that will work wonders for one Fibro Fighter that will leave another one in tears."
That's exactly it. I tried and tried. Doing a "neck" (and back) class with twenty 70-to-80-year-olds (non-fibro) a few times ripped me up and pressed tears out of me several times, until I realized I can only do about a third of what they can. So I just went out in between or rested or did some alternate exercises. I did use some of the exercises sometimes after, but my acupressurist showed me some less hurtful which work well. I do about 10' of neck exercises per day and 20-50' of back exercises, but in 3' stints (except twisting on my bar stool).
You are absolutely right there , most physiotherapists don't know much about Fibro and various other less common chronic health issues . Most of the ones I have been too before I started to get the skills about being proactive in selecting which person I could be sent to did me more harm than good because of it.That's because most physical therapists ( and to be frank most Rheumatologists ) have no experience or knowledge about how to deal with physical conditions that have a neurological aspect as part of its characteristics.
They usually work with the idea that the same beginners and foundation exercises will work because most physical therapy begins with the same basic movements. What they don't realise because there isn't much training out there for them to research ( or in some instances because they have no interest in researching multi system disease) is that there is no , " one size fits all " in physical therapy , particularly when the condition has not been caused by an injury or involves a nervous system reaction not just a tissue based one.
One physiotherapist I went to when my Fibro and Trigeminal neuralgia was causing me constant neck and jaw pain insisted that their very first exercise of moving my head up and down to my chest while lying down was a very basic move and was necessary to do first , it could not do any damage it was so low impact, even though I knew it was a move I had to be careful with because it triggered nerve pain and spasms.
I decided I would try , in part in the desperate hope she was right , but if she wasn't I could prove it. She came back to the room to find me shaking all over , pea green in the face and leaning over a bin.
She was terrified and quickly grabbed my friend from the waiting room whom virtually had to carry me out as my legs were shaking so much , the Fibro was only part of it , my other condition of Dysautonomia , undiagnosed at the time , was doing the rest.
She said to take care and that it would be alright if I didn't come back for a couple of weeks , I never returned.
I have had various therapists since then but as I've got more used to what conditions I have and done my own research I have become far more politely proactive in telling them what I can and can't do and why. If they are resistant or rude about it I know they have no experience in dealing with multi systemic conditions and will take too much time to educate , the stress of doing so I can do without , so I have moved on again.
Having the full diagnosis confirmed was the most important thing I could do to give me my power back. It is easier because you can research your illness and its pattern yourself. It easier when you can say with a polite and positive air , I have this , it causes this and this , that means I can't do this and that ( even if on the inside you are imagining hitting them in the face with a bed pan!).
When I continued to try and get physical therapy I realised hydrotherapy would do a lot to help from my research. I had to look up if there was a local centre and where , my GP and many Primary Care providers in the UK don't have a clue what is really available to access in their own areas.
I had to have a Rheumatology Physiotherapist to assess me for that and that is were I saw a difference. Even though the first RP at assessment needed to do checks they accepted there were certain things I shouldn't do to prove my needs because if the symptoms it would cause in rebound. So , I know now that requesting to see the Senior Rheumatology Physiotherapist rather than the general therapists whom are only trained in dealing with physical change will have more experience of the need to adapt what the patient dies even if they have little experience treating what you have got.
The hydrotherapy therapist is my new therapist full stop , as he had more training in various less common conditions. I could have kissed him when he told me he wouldn't let me continue doing any more exercise as I had to learn that activity needed to be built up. I have to some extent been really lucky to find one of the few therapists that is interested and looking in to how the nervous system affects physical ability . He ,in fact, knows more about it than the Rheumatologists in my area , which they admitted to him when he requested their advice.
But it isn't just luck , it was my work and a lot of trial and error in learning how to deal with the system over 15 years that got me there. Work I shouldn't have had to do really.
Wow, lots of experience(s) - good to read, I so identify.Adding 2 experiences of mine with my best "physiotherapists":
I'd been with a good osteopath off and on for a few years, but had the feeling she was harming once in the fibro full flare. Then I was assigned to one in a larger normal physiotherapy practice, and he turned out to be young, gentle, only just finishing his exam and keen on trying lots of things with me, explaining a lot, listening to my body. This helped quite a bit, however not always where I wanted to most. Good for starters. I think 2x40'/w.
Then I started the acupressure, with cryotherapy before, first parallel, then just that - she listened even more and focused on my subjective problems as well as what the ear in the auricular acupressure part was "saying" and that helped get all local pains down completely, together with some body acupressure & other things, like treating scars, but not teaching much acupressure for self-treatment.
Due to her getting the local pains down, but only limited success with my overall condition (Ache, fatigue stiffness etc.,) and then the jab-sfx making any touch and lying there with mask on etc. for often 1-2h just hard to tolerate.
It wasn't that easy to cut the cord, but I'm now realizing that I am independent and even more pro-active without her help, am finding helpful self-treatment points on youtube for everything that crops up, so am doing just as well or better without after over 3 weeks and have more time & flexibility for other things. So I'm glad I've kicked it for now.
@Blearyeyed: "Dysautonomia" you mention as a separate diagnosis. Reading up on the MCAS (mast cell activation syndrome) I seem to have developed thru the jab-sfx this was mentioned more as an underlying set of symptoms, under fibro as well as MCAS etc, that's also how I understand wikipedia on it. Could you clarify how you understand it when you say "my other condition"? It's new to me, haven't quite grasped it... Thanks... 👍
Dysautonomia can be a group of symptoms caused by an imbalance in the autonomic nervous symptom , and this can be acute , such as after a long or severe infection , like Covid or can contribute to the severity of a chronic condition , like Fibro. It often effects your whole body , creating an imbalance in your , "fight or flight "and "rest or digest" responses to put it in simple terms. Many people may suffer from some level of dysautonomia with fibro but little will be talked about it by your Consultant because despite it effecting most individuals in some way with a chronic illness there are very few specialists whom study and understand it.
There are also certain conditions which fall under the umbrella of Dysautonomia as a chronic long term health condition these are usually lifelong conditions which are often hard to identify because of their nature to come and go , and again because of Specialists lack of knowledge about them.
The most common of these is sometimes experienced by some Fibro sufferers too and is called P.O.T.S ( Postural Tachycardia Syndrome ) this involves a swing of over 30bpm in your heart rate with little change in blood pressure on changing position or a swing followed by a heart rate above 100bpm. It causes near fainting and dizziness on changing position and often a combination of vertigo and nausea with migraines. It can get more or less severe throughout your lifespan because of how your autonomic nervous system and circulation can be effected by lifestyle and chronic health conditions.
My Dysautonomia is a lifelong genetically aquired condition which is on the rare end of the scale. I have Sinus Node Reentrant Tachycardia , which means that the electric signal misfires in my heart reducing blood flow and my heart feels the need to work harder on movement to try and help circulate the blood. It causes the same , or very similar changes in heart rate to P.O.T.S . The condition is made worse by also having Ehlers Danlos Syndrome , a connective tissue disorder with joint hypermobility which can basically effect movement and all things made of connective tissue in the body making it less elastic .
In relation to the dysautonomia, EDS has effected the efficiency of the circulation , nerves and digestive system which in turn over time has increased my risk of developing various other conditions including Fibro.
Having an uncontrolled nervous system firing on all cylinders throughout my life combined with the weekly injuries and healing associated with EDS it is not suprising that Fibro would be a part of my health spectrum.
Many people with EDS have Fibro , not everyone with Fibro has EDS. I have an unholy trinity of EDS, Fibro and Dysautonomia and , as you noted , my last rheumatologist wanted me to be checked for MCAS. Clearly , I am a greedy girl.
In severe forms , like my own which also includes a dysautonomic group of Neuro Gastric Conditions as well as the cardiac ones, dysautonomia can be incredibly limiting and disabling and cannot be reversed by Self Care , although that does help. Medications are also required to prevent the high toll on the heart and body , physiotherapy is key to reducing Muscle Atrophy and the long term potential of needing a wheelchair. This is when it is classed as a chronic condition in itself.
There is a charity called, Dysautonomia International with a website with lots of information if you would like to learn more. Unfortunately, there are no help and support groups yet on HU dedicated to helping people with P.O.T.S or Dysautonomia , or, as far as I know , short term autonomic dysfunction which is a shame as most people with a long term health issue , or after a long term stay on medication or in hospital suffer some level of that. Not suprising though , there are very few Specialists UK wide whom specialise in it and only one specialist clinic in the UK.
Just wanted to belatedly thank you for this detailed post and assure you that I keep coming back to it, having now read it 4 or 5 times, digesting and internalizing it more and more. .. - so I hope I'll be able to multiply/spread it when anything similar crops up anywhere.
My husband swears by it and he has found a difference since he travels for work. I know I’m in USA so I don’t know $ systems, but the rest should be same
The place hubby found has 2 practioners I like one hate the other. He doesn’t believe in fibromyalgia. Even though 4 rheumatologist are diagnosing me with it. The other, O’Brien, is respectful. Has shown me that I have scoliosis with a upward twist in towards my heart/ lung. eeeps!!!
The facts are if he is open, takes time to explain what treatment protocol and prognosis. I understand I fall bc I drag one foot bc the leg is uneven.
Etc etc. so I think respect, knowledge and trust. Bc I don’t want to be crippled from a neck wrench.
My mother had genetic osteoarthritis which affected her whole body especially her hands, I am also affected to a lesser extent, my knees like my brother and Uncle, although having a deformed chest [pigeon chest] and epilepsy whereby over the years "you have broken every rib in your body!" over the years, twenty years ago I went to a chiropractor, and my mother noticed my relief after a session, I advised her to go as well, she did, until three years later she died of a stroke, she was trying Yoga as well! I was a regular there until 2017, when I broke five ribs [off an exercise bike🙄] , chest condition too dangerous for me to continue! He was able to use acupuncture which was also a great relief! Chiropractor's have bad names for themselves, another one about eight miles distant is certainly a "cowboy" but mine has plenty of qualifications, even now he remains a good friend! When you are going to one CHECK HIS/HER QUALIFICATIONS AND REFERENCES CAREFULLY! If you lived in Northern Ireland I could gladly give you his contact details👍
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