NATURAL Nutmeg
Health
When Your Body Talks,
LISTEN!
12 MARCH / APRIL 2022
By Sharon Sklar
“Don’t ignore the issues at hand because they don’t really go away—they are just driven deeper and will resurface sometime later, becoming chronic pain.” —Sharon Sklar
T
here was a very loud bang that scared my seven-year-old dog, causing him to jump up and over, landing on my new puppy, who screeched and ran around my feet, tangling my ankles with his leash. I fell to the ground on my right knee and onto my right hip, like a sack of rocks, onto the hard pavement. People ran over to me to help as I lay on the sidewalk in West Hartford Center. As they helped me up, I got myself centered and continued our little walk. I felt okay, with just a bruise on my right knee, and basically forgot the incident. About five or six weeks later, I woke up with severe pain in my right hip and was nearly unable to bear any weight on my right side. I couldn’t walk or stand, so I did some stretches and managed to get upright. The next few days were filled with hip pain, limping, and soreness all over my body. I am not a person who experiences daily pain in my body and generally feel rather well, but I had to acknowledge that I was feeling rather out of sorts. I was very confused—what had happened seemingly overnight?! Putting lotion on my legs after a shower, I saw the slight leftover bruise on my right knee which
had faded over time. It hit me—the fall I had taken a month and a half before had finally, acutely, made me aware that something was wrong. Something had gotten seriously out of whack when my right knee slammed into the sidewalk and then my right hip hit as well. As a Rolfer who works with many clients who suffer from old falls and injuries that they never addressed, I admit I felt a bit stupid. The fatigue I had been feeling I believed was due to the change of seasons, or the stressors in my life piling up, or not getting enough rest. The truth uncovered was that for six weeks, I walked around with my body slowly shifting until that morning, when it became loud and intolerable. Being the only Rolfer in Central Connecticut and not being able to work on myself, I had to rely on other allied professionals. My massage therapist friend tried to help me; I got a bit better but kept sliding back into pain. My weekly five-mile hikes with my dogs became harder and I was sore and in pain some—if not most—of the time. How can people live like this, I wondered? Pain reaches into every moment and every movement. During a wellness exam, I asked my doctor to send me for physical therapy with a PT I really