Being healthy shouldn’t be a luxury, but it is.
And the older I get, the more I understand just how many people cannot afford this.
Let me give you a real-life example:
I have been “unhealthy” all of my life, although I didn’t know it. You see, I have suffered from debilitating headaches since I was a child. I would get migraines here and there but most of the time my headaches seemed more tension related. They would be in or above my eyes and oftentimes accompanied by pain in my ears.
My mother assumed that I suffered from sinus issues, as did she and a few others in our family. So, I’d take allergy pills, pop a Tylenol, and keep it pushing.
But, of course, Tylenol’s effects were only temporary. My headaches always came back.
So, I continued living like this through college, but unfortunately, my health issues worsened. Along with my frequent headaches came a stiff and sore neck and upper back pain. Many times the space between my shoulder blades would feel as if it were on fire, and this pain would shoot up through my neck, jaw, ears, and eyes and oftentimes leave the top of my head throbbing. Imagine a jackhammer drilling in the center of your head. My point exactly.
So, I continued popping my over-the-counter pills even though none provided full relief. I researched specialty pillows and neck cushions, but one after another, these failures piled up on my bed. I even added in natural remedies such as yoga and essential oils, but nothing seemed to help me.
And my pain continued to worsen. Most nights I could barely sleep, tossing and turning from the pain. And if it wasn’t enough that my head, ears, neck, and upper back were in excruciating pain, my body decided to add another blow. Sometimes, my right arm would have a tingling sensation and my arm and hand would go numb. And then came the nausea, curling my stomach so badly that it brought tears to my eyes.
If this sounds painful to read, just imagine living like this. Some days my pain was so unbearable that I couldn’t function, but what’s more unfortunate is that I was accustomed to it. In fact, it was a good day if my head didn’t hurt as much.
So, let’s jump to 2015 and I’m in pain, of course, and telling my coworker and new friend about yet another headache.
“Have you ever tried a chiropractor?” she asked.
“No,” I looked at her confused because I wasn’t even fully sure what a chiropractor did.
“You should try one,” she suggested. “They’re supposed to help with headaches. I’ve been getting adjustments for years.”
Now, let me be clear: I had never met anyone who had visited a chiropractor, but I also grew up in a very different environment than my friend. She was raised in a middle class suburb. Her parents owned their home and multiple businesses. Her socioeconomic background gave her the opportunity to experience many more things than me and those I knew growing up.
So, I took her suggestion and visited a chiropractor. The doctor immediately told me that my left shoulder was lower than my right, and she could see that my posture was poor. She also pulled out a replica of a spine and explained how the bones in our spine are intertwined with nerves that run throughout our body. The brain sends signals through those nerves, telling our bodies how to function.
She pointed at a bone at the base of the neck.
“When this bone is misaligned, it pinches this nerve at the base of your neck,” she explained. “Your headaches are really starting here.”
Talk about mind blown.
I had never even considered that my body’s alignment, or lack thereof, could be the reason for my headaches. But as the doctor continued educating me, a vague memory of my school nurse tracing my spine and saying “scoliosis” crossed my mind. But I had never heard anything more about it.
So, the chiropractor adjusted my spine that day, and I was relieved to see that I felt a little better. But the relief didn’t last long once I understood the costs associated with chiropractic care. They wanted me to come in 2-3 times per week, and unfortunately, my little recent-graduate-barely-can-save salary couldn’t afford that. Even with my insurance, which wasn’t very good at the time, there was no way I would be able to pay for consistent chiropractic care.
So, I continued suffering. But as the pain worsened, I looked for more affordable options to help me tolerate the pain (shout out to The Joint Chiropractic). However, visiting the “express” chiropractor here and there didn’t seem to be helping and as the years went by, the burden of being unhealthy really started to take its toll on me.
I would go days without being able to get off the couch because I was in so much pain and the sleepless nights didn’t make it better. Living like this was draining, so this year I willed myself to find help again.
Two spine specialists, an MRI, and a few X-rays later, I found myself at a new chiropractic office. I had thoroughly researched this place and was hopeful about its claims of eliminating the root issues versus common pain management.
Thankfully, this practice proved true to its word. The doctor thoroughly explained my X-ray and MRI results and helped me understand the source of my pain and how much, if at all, it could be corrected.
Turns out that I do have scoliosis, which is a sideways curvature of the spine. And on top of that I also suffer from reverse cervical lordosis, which means that 1) the spine in my neck is straight instead of curved and 2) the spine is running in the wrong direction. Because of this, the nerves in my neck are being cut off from the rest of the body, not only causing tension and congestion from my neck up but also restricting the brain’s signals to the rest of my body.
The headaches, arm and hand numbness and tingling, and even the nausea all made sense now. And yet again, I felt relieved to understand what was happening in my body, this time even more so because I could clearly see the root issue. But just like in 2015, I didn’t feel so great once they explained to me the costs of my treatment plan. On top of the $400 I’d recently paid for the MRI, this treatment would cost me $2,200—and that only covered the first few months of what could take 1-1.5 years to correct.
I’m grateful that God has consistently increased my salary since 2015, and although I am unsure that I can continue prolonged chiropractic care, this time I was able to pay the bill and begin getting the help I so desperately need.
But there are so many people who aren’t in my position, especially within the black community. As a child, I didn’t know anyone who visited specialty doctors like a chiropractor, and to this day, I still don’t know many black people who do.
Because not only is being healthy a luxury, having the means to even consider getting healthy is a privilege.
My single mother somehow raised my sister, brother, and me on a less than 35k salary. That means that after taxes, we were considered poor. If your children have to get free lunches, do you think you as a mother can even entertain the idea of taking one child to a specialist after you’re told she may have scoliosis?
It’s no wonder that I have only seen one black patient once in the past few months of me frequenting this chiropractor. I have yet to see another person of color, and I go three times per week.
Honestly, it’s difficult to see the range of patients who faithfully get treatments there. I have seen everything from children to the elderly and the lack of racial diversity always reminds me of the overabundance of racial and socioeconomic disparities in this country.
I know the words “privilege” and “white privilege” are starting to become loaded language right now, but we cannot deny how much they have and continue to impact our overall well-being. The white children seeing my chiropractor are more privileged than I was at their age, and now I have progressed to a socioeconomic level to be slightly more privileged than my fellow black brother or sister who could never think about affording this type of health care.
Inequality is more than a word on a protestor’s sign, a hashtag, or the “it” thing to advocate for right now. It’s a very real disease that is deeply embedded in our nation’s systems and services.
It’s there every time a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s chooses not to add a location in a predominantly black neighborhood. It’s in the lack of comprehensive care pregnant black women receive compared with their white counterparts. And it’s certainly the reason why so many black and brown people have died from complications related to COVID-19.
And this type of unhealthiness is far more costly than any luxurious visit to the chiropractor.