Rattle Me Bones
Mr. Wiebe goes to the chiropractor
By Christopher Gray, Fri., April 21, 2006
Never let it be said that Mike Wiebe hasn't suffered for his art. In fact, the Riverboat Gamblers singer suffers on a daily basis. Years of hyperactive frontman behavior – whipping his head around, climbing amplifiers and rafters, diving into the crowd, Chaplin-esque pratfalls – makes great entertainment, but has left him with chronic aches and pains, frequent headaches, trouble sleeping, and worse.
"I got a pretty bad laceration in New York here," he says, pointing to a wicked scar on his right forearm. "I fell on a pint glass and gashed it bad. It took 17 stitches. The cab driver took me to [NYC charity hospital] Bellevue, and it took them six hours to see me. There were gunshot wounds, and some guy had burnt his top lip off on a crack pipe."
He's also had a few concussions from "knocking into stuff" (mostly his bandmates' guitars) but insists they weren't intentional.
"It's not like a GG Allin let's-hurt-ourselves kind of thing," insists Wiebe. "Really, it's like a dozen shows out of hundreds."
To better fathom the physical toll of those shows, the Chronicle arranged for Wiebe to consult with local chiropractor Dr. Cynthia J. Schade at the Active Life Chiropractic Clinic on West Sixth Street. After taking his measurements (6 foot 3 inches, 167 lbs.) and watching a brief introductory video on the basic tenets and history of chiropractic, a discipline founded in 1895 and based on locating and correcting "interferences" in the spinal column, Dr. Schade begins her exam.
Early on, it's fairly obvious Wiebe has plenty of interference. Dr. Schade's measurements reveal his left side to be an inch higher than the right. "If these muscles are drawn up here, it's going to pull the shoulder blade up. Same with his ears. See how his left ear is a little more forward than the right?"
Dr. Schade has Wiebe do a series of bending and stretching exercises resembling calisthenics. His right sacroiliac joint, which connects the bottom of the spine to the pelvis, is "not moving at all," likely due to his trademark pratfalls, long hours of sitting in the Gamblers' van, and the repetitive motion of his day job washing dishes at Spider House. She calls this "a hitch in his get-along," which often leads to lower-back and leg pain.
Wiebe's sharpest pain comes when Dr. Schade probes the area where his neck meets left shoulder blade. It's swollen and inflamed, and the muscles are bunched up in a knot. Wiebe says it's plagued him since last summer's Warped Tour. When she raises his head, effectively straightening out the vertebrae, the pain eases considerably. It's the same sort of ailment that befalls people who get whiplash in a car accident, and frequently causes headaches.
"When a person has damage in here, I recommend the patient get X-rays," she tells him. "What I can't tell just from an exam is if it's predominantly muscular, or if there's damage severe enough that it's caused ligament instability. With ligament instability, a lot of times the muscles tighten up because they're trying to stabilize your neck. It's solvable, but sometimes when people keep aggravating things, it gets harder to fix."
Until Wiebe can get his neck X-rayed, Dr. Schade recommends he put ice on his neck and do exercises to smooth out the muscles (basically tucking his chin into his throat). Like all too many musicians, Wiebe has no health insurance, though he says he's considered applying for the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians. The X-rays will run about $60.
A week later, Wiebe says he's decided to get them. To pay for it, he says, "I'm just going to work an extra shift."
