Wellness with Sandi

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Today I feel the strongest I have been in probably most of my adult life.  Not just strong, but resilient.  Flashback 10 years ago and I can see myself lying in my bed, in pain, unable to move or sleep due to sharp pain running from my lower back down to my foot.  It was scary and I was not sure how I ended up in this place.  I work out, I take care of myself, how could this happen to me??  This was an eye-opening experience.

I had been having on and off back pain for the last few years.  I had a pretty bad bout of it recently and I remember scrolling through YouTube videos trying to find one to help me release all this tightness and pain I was experiencing. I may have overdone it, or it was just meant to happen but not long after lying on the floor stretching, I got up and felt this sharp pain that was hot and could not walk. My husband had to help me upstairs and into bed. After the night from hell, I had called my doctor, and she prescribed a muscle relaxer, which did help me quite a bit.  I was able to get some much-needed sleep. However, there was this fear inside of me that it was going to happen again if I didn’t make some changes. PT was helping somewhat, but I felt like I was missing something.  After a few days and just taking time to let my body heal, I was back to teaching yoga, albeit not doing any demos, plus I was donning a heating pad.  I decided to see what options were out there and found a Pilates PT studio not too far away and thought it would be a good option for me. I had taken some Mat Pilates classes many years back and remembered how strong I felt in my core.  When I called, they set me up with a therapist, and she helped me work through a very low level of pain.  The therapist was confident that I could recover and be stronger.  She put me through my paces and sure enough I felt much better than I had in years.

Fast forward one more year and this girl decides to be a Pilates instructor.  I spent a couple of years going through the training and learning how my movement patterns were contributing to my back pain. (Ah Ha moment) To this day I am always aware of how I sit and move to not contribute to the imbalances that can cause nerve irritation. 

Thankfully I live an active life and hope to continue enjoying all the good things life has to offer. We can all have scary situations in life and it’s about learning how to manage them to make it through to the other side.  I was lucky to have found a therapist that could help me and my wish is that I can be that person for someone else and pay it forward.

Namaste,

Sandi