Me and my back - Part 1

The first time I started having problems with my back was in 1992. I remember one day I bent over and couldn't get back up again. I found a chiropractor who could see me that day, he put me on a special table that had these punching things that shot out and cracked the various vertebrae in place. I was good for two years, then it happened again. This time I couldn't get out of bed. I found another doctor who lived only ten minutes away. He didn't have the fancy punching table, he just jumped on top of my back for what seemed like forever. The results were good and I never had the problem again. Move ahead to 2003. While pregnant with Evan my left leg started hurting me at night. The only thing that would give me relief was to sleep in a really contorting position, not easy to do when you have a ten pound fetus in your stomach. The real trouble started after I gave birth. I had a really difficult time getting out of bed in the morning. It improved a little as my fitness came back, but I always had a few moments in the morning where I felt like I was about 80 years old. I started running marathons again, having a little trouble with pain in my shoulders and hips. This last spring while I was out running a race, someone came up to me and said that I was really leaning to the right. I've always had one shoulder lower than the other so I didn't give it a lot of thought. Then in May I was running another race in town where my elite coach husband was on his bike following the lead pack. Afterwards he swung around to find me. When he did he asked (while I was running) "is this as fast as you can go?" After i practically spit on him he told me that I was "twisted". I told him it's been that way for a long time, he just hasn't been paying attention to me. The next day he came with me on a run to watch me and stopped me after three minutes. He said that I was running so contorted that he couldn't bare to watch. Then he had me run with my hands clasped and stretched out on top of my head. It was really difficult to do but after one minute when I would let go I could fly down the road (well, let's say I could run 30 seconds per km faster...). After that it was hard for me to go back to just regular running because now I could really feel the difference between what if felt like to run normal and what if felt like to run contorted. Plus, my back pain was starting to get worse. In the mornings it went all the way from my hips, through my glutes and down the back side of my legs. I had to back up off the bed and get near a wall to be able to stand up. After ten or fifteen minutes I was good to go, but it was obvious that I really needed to get some help.