Medicinal Spanking

Yes, I believe I have discovered a medicinal use for spanking.

I've been having problems with pain in my right flank area - the hip, right buttock, upper front and side of the thigh, the illiopsoas region. Some of it is bursitis, some of it is muscle tightness from years of not walking properly because of my bad ankle, some of it (caused by the bursitis and muscle tension) is a pinched lateral femoral cutaneous nerve. My various medical professionals have tried anti-inflamatories (which eat up my stomach despite being on both Prilosec and Zantac), narcotics, acupuncture - including electro-acupuncture, and bodywork. The last one has been the only thing that has helped much. But, I can't afford to see the massage therapist as often as I need to in order to really resolve the pain.

This last week at acupuncture (which I get free at a really cool community clinic here in Portland called Outside In) I got a moxa stick (an herb burned to do the same thing that acupuncture needles do) and some advice about arnica and castor oil being anti-inflammatories. She suggested that I take a hot bath so the pores would be open to allow either the arnica or the castor oil to sink in, then to burn the moxa stick over the region as close as I could stand it to get it as hot as possible.

So, I've been following these instructions this week, but after I finished, I sort of gently smacked the area of my hip. It felt good -- not in the spanko way, but in the "stuff is relaxing" sort of way. So I smacked some more around my hip, then my right buttock, then onto the side of my thigh where the pinched nerve is. It still felt good, so I kept doing it, a little harder this time, until my arm got sore (actually made me feel a slight bit of sympathy for you poor tops). It wasn't enough to register pain, but my right buttock did have this nice tingle, as did my thigh and hip.

And, the cool part is, it's been working. My flank region isn't hurting quite as badly. I can actually palpitate around the bursa without about jumping up from the pain.

Now, I know Paul over at LaFesse had a story from Russian scientists who found that whipping cured depression, though the study has yet to make into the medical journals. But maybe my cure for hip pain can be added to list of the medicinal uses of spanking.