One important question you forgot about, Doc...

I swear this is the last post I am talking about health problems and other personal nonsense that I bothered you lately on this blog. You probably wish to read some more cheerful posts on this blockchain. This one though might help you as well, because it's not just me ranting about the medical system like I did in here, but rather an educative post. Yes, education on my blog... I know it sounds weird.

Anyway, the back problems, and the leg ones that seem to be caused by the sciatic nerve, that I mentioned about in previous posts, kind of stroke me at the beginning of October, when I started to become more physically inactive and drowned myself for hours on a chair in front of my laptop. They don't have an overnight cause, as they would have probably be gone by now, if they did. It's something that I worked on for years, without even knowing.

Usually when you get to a doctor, some general one, not a specialist, whom I should have visited, they ask you about your work, in case of such health condition, if you do any sports, and the most important question for them is: have you lifted heavy objects lately?. Yes, probably most of the back problems are caused by lifting heavy things, and I encountered such situations over time, but they usually go away after a few days or weeks. They're not like some sort of silent killers, more like being loud screamers.

image source

One important questions, that I found about, and that none of the doctors I've talked to, that I should have been asked, is:how do you sleep?. Yes, rarely do we pay any attention on how we sleep, especially when being teenagers or in the first years right before getting old. You go to bed on whatever position you feel like comfortable and you fall asleep, without even knowing it. Then you wake up the next morning, live the day, and repeat the cycle day after day, year after year.

During sleep, which can take something between five and eight hours per night, the body usually doesn't change position too much, so imagine staying for eight hours with your neck, your spine and your legs bend in all sort of weird positions, keeping them under tension. For this matter, I have noticed myself as being a very weird sleeper, as I have quite the most damaging sleeping positions, and such positions might even be guilty for the scoliosis and sciatic nerve pain that I am dealing with.

Bending and twisting vertebrates, nerves and muscles, for about eight hours a day, would at some point cause some affections and the body's triggering system to make you aware of the situation is pain. It doesn't have any other communication channel with you. Hence you start feeling pain in the back, legs, neck, or even headaches. Not all of them could be 100% caused by sleeping positions, but you will be amassed to see how much it affects such conditions, and I will link a youtube video that enlightened me for this matter.

My favorite sleeping position is some sort of a twisted sleeping one, on my stomach, with the right leg bend to the right. Guess what this one can cause? Scoliosis and pain in the hips, and leg muscles or nerves(sciatica). Exactly what's bothering me. Not only that I stress out those vertebrates, nerves and muscles during the day with laying on a chair in front of my laptop for hours, but I continue doing that over the night as well. It's like I'm somehow my own enemy, day and night.

For every problem there are at least five solutions, if you start to think and ponder a bit, and this guy in the above linked youtube video not only explains about what and how pain is caused by "bad sleeping" but gives some healthy alternatives on the way as well. One of which I am happy to implement, and that is sleeping on my back and using two pillows, as he indicates. My least attractive sleeping position will have to become my most attractive one, because this is the best one.

Now, if I would have been careful at how I was waking up, after some good hours of sleep over night, I would have discovered by myself what's wrong, but I wasn't paying attention to that particular detail, and neither did the doctors ask about. They probably don't sleep at night, and that's why they don't consider it causing something related to it, and instead of trying to solve a problem from "its roots", they prefer dealing with "the leaves" and just shill some pills and gels to fix things, or get you to the knife when the situation asks for it.

Nothing's just black and white though, and paying attention to details is where one generally finds proper solutions, in most of the problems. I am this type of guy digging into details and although I haven't particularly searched for this video, it appeared as a recommendation on Youtube and I'm pretty grateful for finding it. Sometimes the Universe, or however do you want to call this mysterious creative power, finds the way to pour the right liquor in the right glass, at the right time.

Thanks for attention,
Adrian