R4VI's Blog

My daughter has been in gymnastics for several years now. She absolutely loves the sport and is fearless. So fearless that she attempted a trick that went wrong. She fell off the balance beam and injured her spine. We had to look into spine surgeons to take a look closer.

I signed up my daughter for all sorts of different activities when she was young. I wanted to make sure she had the opportunity to find something she was passionate about. My husband and I enrolled her in ballet, basketball, soccer and gymnastics. Our daughter immediately fell in love with gymnastics. That is all she wanted to do and it continued on for years. I am glad that she has found something that is so passionate about.

It has been a little nerve wrecking to see my little girl grow up in gymnastics. Every time she would do a new trick, I was anticipating an injury. Most of her falls have luckily been minor incidents. She just bounced right back up and gets back on. This fall was different. The coach knew something was wrong. She was uncomfortable and unbalanced. When we asked her what was the problem she would just shake it off. Eventually, she admitted that she was experiencing lower back pain. I knew that we needed to take her to be seen immediately. In this sport any signal your body gives you is something an athlete should not ignore. As much as she did not want to go, I know it was the right thing to do.

So one time when I was young and in my mid 20s I lived in a different town that almost all of my friends an away from my best friend. She needed spine surgeons. That is not true, I just needed to get something written about that. So she lived far away and just about every weekend I would drive down to my old hood and I would visit. I was driving down one day after work and I decided that I should call her. She was really sick and thought she had a fever so I stopped and got her something from the store. Turns out she had a terrible fever and was in a lot of pain in her back. This was a little alarming because she only has one kidney and that side was incredibly painful. So we went to the emergency room and had to wait a little while, but eventually she went in. She was then having to have just about every test on the planet to determine what was going on. After pain medication and a ton of blood tests, they decided to do a spinal tap. And I watched it and it was disgusting. That was the largest needle I have ever seen and she was a small person, I was surprised that that needle did not go through her whole body. Yuck. It was hard to watch. So then they never determined what it was, which was disappointing. She did not need minimally invasive spine surgery.

  Lower back pain is caused by a number of different reasons. I am sure you know someone who suffers from back pain or that you suffer from back pain yourself. Either way, back pain is quite common and stress in a main factor in what causes back pain. People deal with stress all the time. There is the stress of work, the stress of bills, the stress of children, the stress family, and the list goes on and on. There is a lot of stress out there and we all battle our own in our own ways. But when you bury that stress down and it does not get a constructive outlet, it stays with you. It doesn’t just disappear. That stress that you bury becomes a part of your muscles, it turns into the tension and then it affects your back muscles, neck muscles and even your shoulder muscles. It can also affect your heart, you head, and other parts of your body. Stress can make you sick and therefore needs a constructive outlet. Some people choose to pain or draw and others choose to play golf and basketball. It doesn’t matter what you do, as long as you are releasing stress. You could even get regular back massages. This is a great way to release stress because there are places in your body that can be pressed on that allow for instant stress release. If you have ever had a back massage than most likely you know what I am talking about. If you have never had a massage, try it out and you will see exactly what I am talking about. You do not have to go out and find spine surgeons who will implement minimally invasive spine surgery. You can get lower back pain relief simply by releasing some stress.