physical therapy Archives - GrandmaBetsyBell

This article is part of a series of posts I have written about various therapies that may be helpful to relieve suffering due to arthritis.

Physical Therapy has not been high on my list of therapies helpful to relieve sciatica. However, pain up and down my right leg emanating from pinched nerves at L5 and L4 sent me back to the Physical Medicine doctor at my HMO, the Polyclinic here in Seattle. Dr. Ren recommended the Physiotherapy Associates at Greenlake. Eight sessions later, I still have pain, but I am stronger and less fearful.

Perhaps you have had similar responses to pain. When you hurt every time you walk a couple blocks, pretty soon, you stop walking altogether. When that happened to me, I stumbled on Tarama Gillest, Therapeutic Yoga instructor and owner of Bend n Move. In four sessions with her, I learned to manage my anticipation of pain with deep breathing and a series of body loosening and strengthening moves. I got out my sticks and took them everywhere so when the pain came, I have help. The hiking sticks help me lift my body with my arms, taking the pressure off my back.

In spite of this therapeutic intervention, I still experienced increased weakness in the right leg. This is where Physical Therapy came in. Two things to tell you about Physical Therapy with Physiotherapy Associates.

1. the exercises and stretching moves they employed did not increase pain. In fact, the opposite. Several of their stretches and exercises were ones I feared because they mirrored the actions that have caused pain in the past, such as the doggy leg lift when on all fours. In the controlled environment at the Physical Therapy office, I have been able to do leg lifts, strengthen the ham string without fear. Fear of pain is one of the problems that keeps us from moving.

2. Repetition increased strength. Do you know how many reps these guys make you do? 15 to 20 with each leg, twice or three times. You have to increase strength with that kind of workout.

They always end with icing and a ten minute rest. I recommend this PT experience for anyone who is struggling with the results of arthritis.

Finally, the therapist and my personal trainer talked to discuss my strength training at Xgym, so I have a tailored program to keep the upper body strong while I am working on the muscles and tendons and nerves below the waist.

The experience that pushed me over the edge was cross country skiing last week. The pain was so great, I had to stop after 2 hours and sit in the car while my companions enjoyed another hour and a half of skiing. I decided to follow the advice of my skiing/hiking buddy’s husband. I am going to see an orthopedist who specializes in a mildly invasive surgery to clean out the spinal stenosis bone growths. The real culprit is a narrowing of the spinal opening. If he can help, he will. If he looks at my MRI and decides he can’t help…….. well, I will have to continue doing the things I am doing in order to get into the wilderness and hike or ski the trails.

Shaklee’s Pain Relief Complex is helpful. I still recommend it. You can take lots without hurting your stomach, and by that I mean, 4 – 10 a day.

Wish me luck. Betsy

Be well, Do well and Keep moving. Above all else, Keep moving.

Betsy

Be well, Do well and Keep moving, Betsy

Gentle Reader,

If you suffered trauma to your back, perhaps you would turn to a traditional medical practitioner. An orthopedist, a neurologist, at least your primary care physician. Surely, a medical problem like an excruciating pain in the lower back and the inability to walk unaided would send one to a regular doctor. I chose a chiropractor. Let me explain.

I grew up in a medical household. My father was an orthopedic surgeon and my mother, a nurse. After the Second World War, my father relocated us New York City people to Oklahoma. He wanted to start fresh and chose to do a year of specialty study with his fellow Naval officer, a professor at the University of Oklahoma Medical School. I was 10 years old when we moved to Muskogee, OK. It was 1947, only 40 years since statehood. The leading bone doctor in town had established himself during Indian Territory days.

I spent my summer evenings with my father, sitting on the hood of our station wagon watching rodeo riders crashing off bulls into the dust; stock car race drivers roaring into the barricades and each other; football players carried off on stretchers. He was waiting for the next injury, getting his Bone and Joint practice going. Youthful bodies he could put back together. A bone carpenter at work.

Back trouble was another thing. “People with back aches are no good malingering bums,” he would say. I now had back pain, unbelievably debilitating. As a high school student, I scrubbed in with him as he performed lumbar laminectomy surgery. I heard the stories of lengthy rehabilitation, set backs, never working again. Was my youthful athleticism going to end at age 42?

Our family lives in Seattle. I worked for a multi-national telecommunication company in outside sales. The office talk about stress often included reference to a chiropractor and the help she gives to tense neck and back pain. Three years earlier, on the eve of my daughter’s wedding, she woke up with a neck so tense she could not move it from side to side. On the advice of my co-workers, I decided to take her to a chiropractor. I embarrassed my daughter by grilling the doctor about the treatment she was about to perform. I could hear my father’s voice “charlatan, fraud” ringing in my ears. I was terrified. In 1986 neither Wikipedia, nor Google search engine was available. I wanted to learn more about the practice of chiropractic medicine. Briefly, chiropractic emphasizes diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially the spine. The hands-on manipulation of my daughter’s neck was successful.

The day after my angry early morning exercise session with Jack LaLanne and horrendous thrust of disc into the spinal nerve, Don drove me to my chiropractor. I knew her through my business-networking group. She had never treated me, but many in the group said wonderful things about her. The massage therapist who helped calm my muscles and spasms enough so I could get out of bed and into a car, referred clients to her. That visit and several more got me on my feet again.

Next steps: my chiropractor sent me to a physical therapist and to the leading sports medicine neurologist for the University of Washington Huskies. The physical therapist wired my thigh muscles, put me on a stationery bike and measured the power output. The left side functioned at about 75% capacity compared to the right. I had no reflex when they tapped below the left kneecap. The nerve down the shin was dead. No movement was comfortable, fluid, exhilarating. Were my running days over? Would I head for the mountains with a pack on my back again? What about the trip my daughters and I dreamed of, circumnavigating Mt. Rainier, the 95-mile Wonderland Trail?

Looking at my MRI results, my neurologist said my bones were not strong enough or dense enough for a laminectomy to be helpful. I had to build a strong structure of muscles to support the weaker skeletal frame. He suggested Feldenkrais.

What is Feldenkrais? Stay tuned for the process that taught me how to lie, sit, stand, walk and transition in and out of each of these positions and actions.

Tell me about your encounters with chiropractors? How did you come to embrace alternative medical practices? If you have not tried alternative healing methods, why not? Until next week,

Be well, Do well and Keep Moving!

Betsy

BetsyBell’s Health4U
206 933 1889
www.HiHohealth.com
www.TiredNoMore.com

Tag: physical therapy

Physical Therapy

I need a doctor! What kind?