Riding a Bicycle is Cheaper Than Visiting a Chiropractor

Yes, it is true that if you ride a bicycle regularly, you will not have to visit a chiropractor for erasing your sciatic pain. I can vouch for this, because I have suffered postural scoliosis in my spine since I was a teenager, caused from one leg being longer than the other by 3 cms, or one inch.

This is common ailment in tall women and when I was a teenager after a gym accident at school. I was only warned not to lift anything heavy. However, once I started working as an Occupational Therapist, lifting patients in hospital (before the advent of hoists for lifting patients!); I knew this was going to be a problem to me ie. the sciatic pain (radiating down one leg). I tried swimming for trying to get rid of the pain, but I also had to learn not to lift anything heavy to avoid causing the problem. So I took to rolling backpacks instead of carrying anything.

Gradually cycling became more of a focus in my life, when I found that I was unable to jog, because the imbalanced stress in my hip joints irritated the sciatic nerve and caused me further pain. Now as a middle aged woman and living in Vancouver, I have found that there is little need for a car, with such good public transport and the weather is more conducive than the UK for cycling, except the rain!

However, I truly never realized just what a difference the cycling would make to my life, until the terrible winter 2 years ago in Vancouver. We had so much snow and no snow ploughs to clear it! As a result, I had to walk everywhere, or take the bus. I chose to walk and unfortunately slipped in the snow that aggravated the sciatic pain.

The one day, I woke up and could not get out of bed, because the pain was so bad. After eventually crawling around, I phoned a spinal chiropractor and went to see him. I gave him the history of my scoliosis. Then after taking X-rays, he told me that I had no scoliosis in my spine!

The chiropractor told me that he could see the imbalance in my pelvic bones from the leg length discrepancy, but he was amazed to see that my spine was quite straight. His quote was "Whatever you are doing, keep it up; because it is doing wonders for your back". I can only tell you that it is the cycling that has erased the scoliosis; because I have constantly got use to sitting like I was sitting on my bicycle, which is sitting on my pelvis.

This position of sitting like on a bicycle has been instilled into my way of life, when I am sitting at home typing on the computer. I have removed the back off my chair, because I never had any need for it. I sit all day on my pelvic bones, but I don't keep my back still.

I will tell you in my next article, just how I keep moving around in prolonged sitting and I never have back problems any more. When you know you have a problem in your skeletal joints, you can't just ignore it. You need to face it head on and determine how you are going to "nurture' or therapeutically "treat" it, while improving your own quality of life.

As a qualified Occupational Therapist, I have had to face the physical challenges that have included not only postural scoliosis, but viral encephalitis. This was severe and has prevented me from returning to work as an Occupational Therapist, due to memory and processing difficulties; as well as osteoarthritis in both hands that have limited my functional ability to use my hands.

We can be survivors and overcome the odds, or we can sink to the bottom and struggle to survive!The choice is yours!