Leo Gets Adjusted

I took Leo to a chiropractor today.

This is a big step for me. I hope in an ok direction. I was raised in a family that essentially mocked chiropractics, which is interesting because they were fond of osteopathy. I have never been to a chiropractor and never figured I'd go, although I see a DO and probably will continue to search out DOs for general/family practice physicians. I know they are different things but it does seem strange to me that I built a big wall around that idea. I have had my back readjusted by a friend who knows what she's doing (really) but never went and sought out chiropractic care.

But Cathy on the phone a week ago, I was talking to her because Leo's latch on is making me crazy with delayed bruise-like pain and blanched skin, suggested this chiropractor because she specializes in infant CST--cranial sacral therapy. Now, online, CST folks seem to suggest it can cure everything from toenail fungus to swine flu, so I wasn't so sure about it. But then I called the friend who readjusted my own back for me, and she told me it was probably worth a try. And that, no, it doesn't do everything they say it does, but what it does do, it does well.

So I called the doctor and she asked me a set of questions about him, all of which I answered in the affirmative: is it more prominent nursing on one side than the other? Has he had an ear infection yet at this young age? Does he spit up a lot? Is he stiff, standing up already?

We saw her today. She started with his hips, which weren't quite in alignment (I'm going to use a lot of words here that I'm probably using wrong, just so ya know). The lumbar vertebrae seemed fine, but then the middle of his back was way messed up. The way she adjusted him? She just laid him on the table, with her hands underneath him, and lifted him slightly. He made all sorts of sounds--little cries, coos, ahs. She worked around front and palpated his belly a bit. He has a hiatal hernia, she told me.

Now, the word "hernia" conjures up images of large men straining themselves lifting something they shouldn't and then surgery. I know, lots of people get hernias. But I hadn't heard this before. She explained it--a bit of the stomach is poking up through the diaphragm. THIS did not make me feel any better, until she explained further that babies get these all the time, they work their way out, and that it's probably the main reason for all the spitting up. I calmed down a bit and she kept moving up his chest.

His collarbones and scapulae were very tight, making him barrel chested. He couldn't hold one hand in the other, and this didn't strike me as odd for some reason. She said it's typical of c-section babies, so maybe my two girls had it like that, too. Huh. His neck was ok, but his temporal bones, jaw, and a few other head things were wonky too. And his frontal bone (forehead) was mashed a bit down on top of the bridge of his nose. She worked on his head a long time, and he was not her friend by the end of that. There was no more working with Leo, nope. She tried massaging his back, getting me to nurse him--nope. He'd made up his mind that this was enough of that game. Still, though, she got a lot done. He was a mess. She reassured me that in the grand scheme of things, he wasn't that bad off. Still though, it seemed like a lot.

We're going back next week to work more on his jaw and to keep an eye on that hernia. He came home and slept, slept, slept. Nursed well on the right side, which is the side that he keeps clamping down on, but the left was still shallow. He hasn't spit up all day. Isn't that weird? And another thing. He can hold his hands together across his chest.

It was definitely worth the try. And now I'm wondering if she can fix Maeve....