Question
I had a laminectomy in '74 and found an excellant chiropractor to heal me up in 1988 in Visalia,Cal,when the pain got unbearable.One of my vertabrae pops straight out(L-5-s4?)and he used a drop table method on me to pop it back in.The problem is I now have a two part stent installed due to an aneurism right where the veins split to my legs.My chiro had to loosen me up by massage and stretching before having to really crank on the vertabrae in conjuntion with the drop table.Sometimes 3 or 4 times.I asked the surgeon that installed the stents if he thought this would be a problem with the stents now in place and he said his training did not cover this situation.I'm wondering if this method might dislodge or other wise disturb the stents ,which seemingly could be bad or maybe even disastrous.

Answer
Hello Joel,

Glad to hear of your prior success with Chiropractic.  Sorry to hear of your vascular problems.

If you are experiencing back pain or pinched nerves again, you can find a local family doctor of chiropractic for evaluation and appropriate treatment.

You can visit a Doctor of Chiropractic.  There are many different techniques available to the Doctor.  Chiropractic can be quite vigorous, or extremely subtle.  Of course give the doctor a complete history, even xerox copies of your reports relating to the stents if available to you.

Of course, of primary importance is what your surgeon told you in your post-op instructions.  Are your ADLs altered?- Your activities of daily living: have they changed, is something (anything) prohibited?
Are you allowed to have sex/ walk/ run/ golf/ swim/ lift heavy objects - - or are some things prohibited?  If there are no prohibitions to your ADLs, if you have no prohibitions in activity, then even vigorous chiropractic activity should not be contraindicated.

If you are not allowed to have sex/ golf/ swim/ run/ workout/ lift; then perhaps the more vigorous chiropractic techniques would have to be altered.

Your surgeon may not have commented on Chiropractic directly; but what were his post-op instructions otherwise, for example on the activities listed above?  If you can do those, you can do chiropractic.  If there are limits above, there may be limits upon chiropractic technique choices.

In my Staten Island Chiropractic office I have many post-op patients of many different procedures.  Usually if they have returned to normal ADLs there is no limit upon technique choices.

Good luck, if further needed, please do not hesitate to contact me again.  Your Staten Island Chiropractor friend,

Dr. Victor Dolan, DC
http://www.GoodHealthNaturally.info
http://www.DocDolan.net
http://drvictordolan.chiroweb.com  (email newsletter)