Recently my wife and I took a wonderful two-week vacation down in the sunny Caribbean. It's one of those things that has become a ritual for us. She insists on getting her two weeks in a tropical paradise every year, and I'm not about to argue about it. For completely selfish reasons I like her to be happy. She usually lets me pick the spot, as long as she has not been there, and I make sure there is potentially some good surfing in the area. On this trip an interesting thing happened. But before I get to that I need to backtrack a little.
My voice is on the nasal side: allergies contribute to my stuffiness, along with a deviated septum. I had the deviated septum "fixed" when I was a kid, but it was still deviated to the right. The allergy portion has improved quite a bit after taking flax seed oil pills (lots of essential fatty acids), but my voice continued to be on the nasal side primarily due to the blockage of my right nostril.
One thing that did help temporally was some cranial manipulation. I had the master, Bob Dubin, DC, work on me and it definitely helped. Following his treatment I did the same maneuvers on myself and would obtain some short-term relief, meaning my sinuses would actually open up a little and I could get a little air in my right nostril temporally. That's where the vacation part comes in.
About 10 days into the vacation an incredible swell hit and it was "Big Wednesday" in the Caribbean. So out I went, my heart racing at my luck of being able to surf a world-class spot that rarely breaks and is quite unknown to most surfers of the world. The bigger set waves were double overhead (a surfer term for, oh never mind). The waves were big enough to have lots of fun and potential rides of a hundred yards or more of serious fun.
I had been out about an hour, having an incredible time, and decided to ride one of the smaller inside waves. Stupid move. My board and I were rather vigorously disconnected. Nothing really happened at that point, my board and I just did our own rolling around in that comfortably warm water at some distance from each other. I surfaced and I turned around to look out to see what the next set of waves coming in looked like. Then my board, missing my presence like a faithful horse, frantically rushed back to my side, smacking into the right side of my nose, dazing me for a second. It's not the first time that sort of thing had happened. The last time my board hit me like that I lost the bottom half of two of my front teeth (nothing quite like the sensation of spitting out the pieces of your own shattered teeth). Anyway, I felt around and it seemed that nothing was broken. Then it started bleeding from a cut across the bridge of my nose and a little bump became palpable.
Paddling over to another surfer to asked how it looked, I noticed I was leaving behind a steady dribble of bright red shark attractor. When I got over to the other surfer and I asked him how it looked, he looked startled. He stared at me with a serious look on his face for awhile, then said it didn't look like it would need stitches. I decided to get a second and then a third opinion. The look one guy gave me worried me a bit, but everyone else said the same thing. I decided to keep surfing, knowing it's not often that you get waves that good.
So I sat there, bobbing and chumming, thinking about sharks, and eventually the bleeding slowed down. The whole time I tried to stay near another unsuspecting surfer, just in case a big hammerhead was in the area, figuring the odds of me not getting champed on would be improved with another warm body nearby. I kept riding those nearly perfect waves for a couple more hours. At one point, in-between waves, I decided to re-check my nose and something rather strange happened.
For most people, breathing through the nose is taken for granted. Not me. One of my greatest fears has come from watching movies where the bad guy tapes up the victim's mouth. In the past that would have been a death sentence for me. I actually was not able to breath out of either nostril until recently, but the flax seed oil pills fixed that. Well anyway, low and behold an amazing thing happened. I actually could breath, although only slightly, through my right nostril. No it wasn't "fixed," but it was a heck of a lot better than no air.
Since that time it has remained about the same. I would guess that it is open about 15% on the right side now. And yes, at this point I assume we're all thinking the same thing: a direct thrust (maybe with a soft thumb contact) to the bridge of my nose on the right side, with a medial to lateral line of drive. Will it fix it? I don't know. But as soon as the scar heals I'm definitely going to have someone give it a shot.
Yes, as the title indicates, I am the lucky bum and I did get a lucky bump from my surfboard. Since I have never heard of any chiropractor doing an external move of this nature I thought I'd bring it up. I'm not convinced that this whole thing is going to work, and I assume there is some danger because of the frail nature of the bones involved, but it beats the heck out of surgery.
You know, chiropractic is a lot of things. It is normalizing joint and neurological function, along with a myriad of other things, and maybe in this instance it could actually involve moving bones, I mean really moving a bone. What a concept! Keep it in mind the next time you have a patient with a deviated septum. Trying a light thrust (or even mobilization of the area), if it works, would definitely be better than jumping into the surgical suite with all its potential side effects. Just a little food for thought.
William F. Updyke, DC
San Francisco, California
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