The wedding invitation was magneted to our refrigerator in Burlington, the dates circled in red, the flights to Rome already booked. And there I was at six in the morning, frozen on the edge of the mattress, one sock half on, my lower back locked up so tight that bending forward felt like a knife turning. My husband heard me and came in. I told him what I had been afraid to say out loud for two weeks. I did not think I could make the trip. I thought we might have to cancel.
This was not how I pictured the lead-up to my only daughter’s wedding.
Counting down to a trip I was dreading
The back pain had crept in over the spring and then dug in for good. By the time the wedding was six weeks out, it ran my entire day. I measured everything by what it would cost my back. Loading the dishwasher. Reaching for a glass on the top shelf. Sitting through a movie. Sleep was a joke. I would find one position that did not hurt and lie perfectly still, afraid to move and lose it.
What scared me was the trip itself. Six weeks in Europe, the wedding in Italy and then time in France and Spain, the trip my husband and I had been planning for two years. And all I could think about was the eight-hour flight in a cramped seat, the cobblestones, the standing through a ceremony, the dragging of a suitcase through train stations. I pictured myself stuck in a hotel room while everyone else celebrated. I started rehearsing how I would tell my daughter I might not be there to watch her walk down the aisle. That was the moment it stopped being about pain and became about something I could not bear to lose.
I was doing what my doctor advised. My primary care physician in Greater Boston had me on anti-inflammatories, sent me to physical therapy, ordered the imaging. The therapy helped a little. The pills took the edge off and left my stomach raw. Nothing was moving fast enough. The clock on the refrigerator kept counting down and my back was not getting the message.
A coworker who would not stop bringing it up
A coworker who lives in Woburn had been telling me for weeks about a clinic in Burlington that helped her after her own back went out. I kept nodding and not going. I had already done the real medical route, the doctor and the imaging and the therapy. I did not see how acupuncture was going to fix in six weeks what all of that had not. I finally booked an appointment mostly so I could say I had tried everything before I gave up on the trip.
The first visit with Dr. Min Jeon Lic.Ac. D.Ac. did not go how I expected. She did not hurry. She sat down and asked me questions no one had asked, about when exactly the pain flared, how I slept, how I sat at my desk, what the trip meant to me and why I was so afraid of it. She listened to the whole thing. When she explained what she was seeing in plain words, nothing complicated, nothing I needed a dictionary for, I understood my own back better than I had in months. She told me one part of my care would use ATP Resonance BioTherapy®, gentle low-level frequencies meant to lower inflammation and help the tissue settle. And she was clear from the start that she would work alongside my doctor and my physical therapist, not replace them.
The morning I put my own socks on
I am not going to tell you it vanished overnight. It did not. But I kept seeing Dr. Min twice a week, driving in past Lexington and Woburn, and the mornings slowly stopped being the enemy. The locked-up panic eased. I could bend to the dishwasher. I could sleep more than two hours at a stretch.
Then came the morning, about ten days before our flight, when I sat on the edge of the bed and put both socks on without a sound. No gasp. No knife. I just did it, the way I had for forty years without thinking, and then I sat there stunned. My husband asked what was wrong. Nothing was wrong. That was the point.
When I saw my primary care doctor for my pre-trip check, she looked at how much I had backed off the medication and asked what I had changed. I told her about Dr. Min and the clinic in Burlington. She wrote it down and told me to keep it up.
We made the trip. I stood through my daughter’s wedding in Italy and walked the cobblestones and danced, carefully, but I danced. For anyone across Greater Boston staring down a deadline with their back holding them hostage, I needed you to know there was more to try before you cancel the thing that matters most.
If back pain is forcing you to give up the moments you have been waiting for, you do not have to surrender them. Call Acupuncture & Wellness Clinic at 781-221-0162 or schedule online at awclinic.com.
Acupuncture & Wellness Clinic | Burlington, MA | Serving Greater Boston including Woburn, Lexington, Billerica, and Bedford | Specializing in back pain, sciatica, chronic pain, and complex cases for over 25 years.