yoga

A little history on me:
In january i started having back pain, in one spot, on the right side in the middle of my back. it felt like a pulled muscle. for two months i tried stretching and heat and icy hot and nothing helped. the only thing that helped was to lay down, sitting made it worse.
I march i finally went to my doctor because i was going to florida which was a 3 hour flight that was followed by a two hour drive. my doctor is an *kitten* and wrote me a script for something i have had before and didn't work so she said well you can take two.
I took 4 and was able to get enough relief to not be in excruciating pain just some discomfort.

Yesterday i finally saw an orthopedist. after xrays this was the diagnosis: i have a very slight kyphosis (in severe cases its a hunch back) that it looks like i have always had, its my natural spine curve. this has led to a degenerative disk which caused the muscle spasm.

her recommendation was physical therapy to learn exercises that i will need for life to help my spine and she gave me another drug to try. she said if no real improvement to call back and she will send me for an MRI. she also recommended a back pillow for when i drive (i am officially my grandma now lol).

we talked about exercising and she said its great that i do weights and cardio and to not stop them but they will do nothing for my back. she recommended trying yoga.

I have been interested in yoga for many years but never tried. I have always known that even though i am such a klutz that i have pretty good balance.

last night i tried a yoga class. I told the instructor about my back and that i've never done yoga before. half way through the class she asked me if i was sure if i had never done yoga before after the class a couple other people told me that if i hadn't said anything they would have been certain i had been doing yoga before. that really made me feel great. what made the instructor ask me if i was sure i had never done yoga before was when i was nailing the eagle pose (yoga has weird names).

during class i felt all my muscles working; several poses my muscles were shaking. i knew my hamstrings were tight but damn! I was sweating and stretching and loving every single second of it.

now back to my back

after class my back felt great. i was actually pain free for the time in months! this lasted for about 30 minutes after class. it actually didn't hurt when i was driving which when it normally is the worst.

conclusion: yoga is great for my back and is a heck of a workout!