The Chiropractor

Chiropractors don’t have the best reputation and I’ve never considered going to one until the other day. I have started up running this year and the shin splints are ridiculous. For around three weeks I’ve had constant pain, so much so that I was pretty sure my shins were cracked. I’m telling this to a buddy, who happens to be a Chiropractor, and he says..”I can fix them”. I am more than skeptical so he says he’ll treat me a couple of times for free.

I head in there the first day and he pulls out a 12” and a 15” stainless steel blade, one curved and one straight that have been purposefully dulled. Then he starts. He very forcefully runs these blades up and down my shins working extra hard on any little lumpy parts he finds. It is hands down the most painful thing I can remember. He only works on each leg for about 2 min. but it is excruciating. Then he sends me on my way and tells me to come back in two days.

Two days later, I can’t even touch the things and he pulls out the blades again. This is more brutal than the last time, but he finishes with some ultrasonic shin blasting unit which I am almost positive does absolutely nothing. He tells me to come back in another two days. I repeat the process and now he is getting concerned that I am not getting better, but actually much worse.

He pulls out a tuning fork and places it on my shins and says, “You don’t have a break because that tuning fork would have made you jump.” What if I’m not tuned to an A? X-rays must be old school. Now I am paying for the visits so I am even more skeptical. He also puts me on an ibuprofen regimen until next time. Mind you, at this point I haven’t run in a week. He also decides to adjust my back and hips just to see if it helps. Ouch!....Now my back and hips hurt.

The next week, I tell him to keep the blades away from me and he does ultrasonic therapy on just one of my legs to see if helps. After two more treatments, I go for a run and the leg that hasn’t been treated feels pretty good. The other hurts like normal….so I tell him I am done.

This is a pretty good friend but I think we both discovered that a little ibuprofen and 2 weeks off was really the best medicine and all the other painful crap just aggravated things more. Ice seemed to help too, but I could have gotten that info from any runner out there. I don’t have all the bills yet but that was a lot of pain and money and time away from work for nothing. So if you want to get rid a run related pains, save the money and time and talk to a runner, not a Dr.