Kickas.org Forums Ankylosing Spondylitis General Discussion Helpful Tips back stretchers / realigners?

finally figured out a lot of my worst upper back pain is actually subluxated ribs. chiro is very gently helping me with them. have been feeling so so much better in that regard, both my upper back and my neck.

but too much sitting yesterday to grade exams and felt that same old pain. tried stretching it out myself, but nothign was really working.

then pulled out this contraption i bought. don't use it much as i never noticed any good from it and being little, felt it too big for me. but, by really stretching back on it and letting gravity pull my chest open and my shoulder blades back, think i must have put a rib sort of back where it belongs. all i know is after doing that, things felt very sore (like after the chiro) but much much better.

maybe this thing has some uses after all:

back stretcher

does anyone else have anything like this. or any other devices to help "realign" their spine / rib heads?

have my eye on this thing:

spine alignment device

or this:

therapeutic neck support

anyone know anything about this:

davinci tool

think the combination of yesterday's experience and the fact that just letting the body fall by gravity into the sacral wedges at the chiros office has me convinced that i may be able to gently take care of some of these problems at home before they snowball.

anyone have any experience with these or other devices to help the back and/or neck?

the only thing i remember having conversations about was traction.

I do this with two sort of flat pillows. First I lay one perpendicular to my spine, then on top of that I lay the next one opposite, then I lie on both. Between this stretch and the lying prone stretch, I think the lying prone does more for my back.

I use a swiss ball to stretch my back out, hooking my feet under one part of the corner sofa for stability, with the other part handy to grab should I start to loose my balance...

One thing my physio showed me was rolling up a towel, and lying on your back on that with it aligned down the spine. This lets your shoulders fall to the floor and opens the chest up, and your head drops back too to counteract bad stooping head posture. I should do it more often...

wether by towel, pillows, or contraption, seems like this is an important stretch for us! i feel like i'm a little late to the party, but better late than never!

i bought one of those foam rollers. it is humongous! not sure i need to be quite this far up in the air but hey, its very stable so ok, i think, so long as i don't overstretch and pull something!

think i'm appreciating my little arch thing more and more now.

and did buy the neck relaxer thingy and the spine aligner thingy. will report back on how i like or dislike them. the price of each thing was cheap enough, to give them a try. never know when something will be the next great tool for the toolbox.

Therapeutic neck support @ $24.99, looks interesting. But I wouldn't give twopence for the spine nor davinci models.

The spinal is better approached by the sponge roll that one places along the spine, and as used in Pilates. That is excellent IF you can abide it! For me, I just scream with pain, unsupportable. The davinci tool? Can't see the point of it. Take a ball, again, as used in Pilates, and you will achieve the same methodology. The ball is good - has to be the right size AND hardness, especially this latter. Also, if one has problems with 'touch', then must be aware of hardness, otherwise too much. And again, will refer back to Pilates, where there are different degrees of hardness of the various balls for this partiular use. (I sure do miss my Pilates classess. Sigh.)

Therapeutic neck support? Yes, looks very interesting - except I can't lie down flat any longer! Ho-Hum.

yeh, not 100% sure about that da vinci thing, didn't buy it, but then again, i've often been surprised by the effectiveness of something in hindsight, like this back arch thing, didn't demonstrate its usefulness until i needed it, meaning, for a happy back, noticed nothing, but for a back with a rib "out", it fixed it.

anyway, we'll report back on the other two.

as for that foam roller, each evening when i lay back on it, as i lay, "one vertebrae at a time, i hear "crack", "crack", "crack". i had gotten to a point where i'd here one or two cracks when laying back on the floor, from a sitting to laying position. but this is a whole new level of cracking!

molly, what do you mean by a sponge roll? could you google an image of it and post it, or a link to one? i bought my foam roller in a pilates studio, but its far too big to place along the spine, its almost the size of a horse! ok, a small pony! ok, its only 6 inches in diameter, but still the thing is huge! (to me) so laying on it, yes. rolling over it, yes. but laying along the side of it, no, think we must be thinking of two very different things.

as for the ball(s), i used to avoid that when i thought the pain was triggerpoints and triggerpoint therapy where you press the triggerpoints just activates and makes them worse on me. now that i understand that my new pains are ribs, have been pressing on them, i've been standing and using the corners of walls, doorframes, etc.

I use a foam roller like this http://www.amazon.com/Foam-Roller-6-x-36...6103&sr=1-4

However the one I bought isnt quite long enough and if I am on it too long, either my hips hurt because I rest my head on it and my tailbone hung off or my neck hurts because I rested my tailbone on it and let my head hang off. So I would make sure that whatever you get, is long enought to support your whole back.

I think I am going to take a closer look at a few of those and see if maybe some of those will help me.