I’ve always had an on-again-off-again relationship with chiropractic ‘medicine.’ That’s because I’m not sure that it’s medicine in any traditional sense. See, I’m not entirely convinced that pushing bones around in our bodies offers significant physical benefits. It certainly can’t cure disease. Chiropractic medicine is the tarsnake of the “fix me” world. Some people swear by it.

Yet, I did have a chiropractor use a scraper to break down scar tissue in my back long after a bike accident. That hurt like hell, but it worked.

I’m giving chiropractic treatment one more try. The practice near my home has good ratings on Google, and some enthusiastic reviews, and they specifically treat knee pain, which I’m experiencing due to the fact that I tore my meniscus many years back, then had surgery to clip off the portion sticking out at the joint, and now my knee aches in the morning and evening.

“Arthritis,” is what an orthopedic doctor friend told me. “Arthritis is a general term for over 100 conditions characterized by inflammation of one or more joints, leading to pain, stiffness, swelling, and decreased range of motion. It can affect joints, the tissues around them, and other connective tissues, and while there is no cure, various treatments can help manage symptoms and slow its progression.”

I prefer to call it ‘wear and tear,’ but more accurately, in my case, ‘tear and wear.’ My unaffected right knee still has its ACL, while my left knee lost it twice over. Once with the original ACL, which I tore playing indoor soccer, and then the ‘repaired’ ACL, a cadaver part stapled into place during surgery after the first tear. I called the cadaver part “Jake,” but Jake died all over again during an outdoor soccer game in which the field was wet and slippery, and I played forward for a half in a game in which we were getting creamed and then a guy rammed into the side of my leg and I felt the dead ACL go “click.”

That was ‘game over’ literally and figuratively.

Things went fine without an ACL until I hurdled a traffic cone in a fit of anachronistic love for the steeplechase, whereupon I hyperextended the knee and didn’t know it at that point, but tore the meniscus that day. It took a couple years, but the torn meniscus bit started sticking out the side of my knee so I had that surgically removed. And went for a walk that next morning. Life is all about rehabilitation.

But now, some five years later, the knee needs attention again. I’ve been teasing my wife that I need “knee cheese,” an injection of some sort to fill that space in the affected joint. I meet tomorrow afternoon for a review of the chiropractic clinic’s recommendations. We’ll see what they say. I kneed an opinion, so I’m getting one.

Thanks for reading.