Thursday, April 07, 2011

Slow Improvement

Better and Not

My back is better at sometimes and still achy at others. Whatever I did to it is pretty persistent.  I have another chiropractor appointment tomorrow, so hopefully that will fix it even more.

The most frustrating part is that it is making me tired as well, although I may have some kind of bug along with it as my stomach was upset yesterday. Could be from the pain, from the out of alignment vertebrae, or from some kind of virus.  Or a combination of all three--with a virus making my back more susceptible to slipping out.

This kind of thing always makes me more aware of just how complex out bodies are.

And how complex our horses' bodies are. I can only imagine how a horse must feel when something in his back is out of place.  If I am this debilitated by my pain, what must he feel?

Because of my PJ and the discovery of equine acupuncture and later, chiropractic, I began to realize that most training problems we have with horses must first be looked at as physical problems.  Horses, as flight animals, have an amazing capacity to work through pain, an even to hide it in order to escape predators.  The weak horse becomes prey, so I suspect horses have developed a pretty high pain threshold--some more than others.

This works in a horse's favor in some cases, but against him in others. If a horse "hides" an injury or illness until it becomes acute, that can create medical problems that are hard to cure.

On the other hand, a horse with something like minor arthritis that might actually benefit from exercise, might be able to continue to work despite the pain.

We, as caretakers of these amazing animals need to learn how to "tune in" to our horse's physical conditions.

From what I know, most readers of my blog already know this, but every now and then it's good to have a reminder.  This time, my own back has tied the string around my finger.

Of course, Tucker, who is always ready to express his opinion, helps. *lol*

3 comments:

  1. I feel so bad for you especially since the weekend weather should be good. Hope the chiro can help get you straightened out.

    I'm with you I always look for the physical first with the horses and if that turns out alright then we go on to mental problems. Does that sound right. Mental problems? Anyway, I agree with you.

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  2. I hope your back is better soon. I have had trouble with mine on and off and have had to resort to a regular set of exercises to strengthen it and build up my core strength. The only way I can keep myself on this task is reminding myself better core strength means better riding. For the horses, I will fix it, for me, probably not enough time. LOL

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  3. Hope you get relief soon! Don't overdo things for a while.

    Your post is a great reminder and I completely agree, it's just to bad the reminder comes to you because of your own pain!

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