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Oh, how true this is for me today. While I won't bore you with the saga of my knee problems, I will tell you that physical therapy helped me a lot. The idea was for me to get moving again and hopefully without as much pain. On the recommendation of my physical therapist, I decided to go somewhere I could start riding a bike. My misadventures with riding a bike on the road had me pretty fearful of trying again. So, I joined a local gym. It was a place I had been to previously and loved when I was 30 lbs lighter and swimming. I actually joined on the first of October but was afraid to try. My PT doctor essentially released me from his care and said to call him if I had any problems. Gee thanks....I just get used to this, and now you are leaving me. Anyway, today was the day. I put on my workout clothes and called down to Hunnybunny, "I'm headed to the gym," .
"Okay, " he called back, trying hard not to sound very surprised. Believe me, I was surprised. Being a fat girl walking into a gym is very intimidating. But nontheless, I found a stationary bike that looked doable. It was complete with built-in fan, television, and computer system that kept track of my rpm's, heart rate, miles/distance traveled. Pretty snazzy. I ended up riding for 33 minutes with a distance of 4 miles. Not bad. I also tried the new and improved stairmaster and made it 2 flights of stairs. If you knew how bad my knee hurts, you would be impressed.
Now I have to figure out how to do this: how many times a week, for how long and what to add. It will be interesting!
Well, this is a pretty good duplicate of what happened with my knee. A complex tear of the medial meniscus was the diagnosis, but what I THOUGHT was they would do surgery. Uh, no...they said, I'm so sorry. But the tear is in a GOOD place and if we remove it, you will have bone on bone. I was so angry. I just wanted this to be over with. The doctor is supposedly the very best in our area. Her bedside manner, not so much. I couldn't help that tears were rolling down my face after they told me. All she said was, " I know that's not what you wanted." (You think, Doc?) "And we are going to send you to physical therapy and see where we are after that." Lovely.
So, I have had 5 appointments now. And today the therapist informed me I have a dislocated tibia. He moved it back into place, which really hurt, by the way, and then, taped it. It feels much better right now. They are also using a PT therapy for the inflammation of the MCL/Medical Meniscus area called iontophoresis. They use electricity to drive drugs through the skin. The deal is the drug they use has to be ionizable (electrically charged). Dexamethasone is the steroidal anti-inflammatory they use, and yeah, it hurts like a bunch of bee stings. Then it chills out, and begins to feel much better. The therapist finishes with ultrasound therapy. And the jury is still out on what that is supposed to do, but they tell me it promotes healing.
While it is true that wasn't what I wanted to hear, I'm sure it's what needed to happen. My PT guy has told me to get more exercise, so Hunnybunny and I joined a gym. I'm really surprised he wants to work out with me, but I will take what I can get.
Oh, how true this is for me today. While I won't bore you with the saga of my knee problems, I will tell you that physical therapy helped me a lot. The idea was for me to get moving again and hopefully without as much pain. On the recommendation of my physical therapist, I decided to go somewhere I could start riding a bike. My misadventures with riding a bike on the road had me pretty fearful of trying again. So, I joined a local gym. It was a place I had been to previously and loved when I was 30 lbs lighter and swimming. I actually joined on the first of October but was afraid to try. My PT doctor essentially released me from his care and said to call him if I had any problems. Gee thanks....I just get used to this, and now you are leaving me. Anyway, today was the day. I put on my workout clothes and called down to Hunnybunny, "I'm headed to the gym," .
"Okay, " he called back, trying hard not to sound very surprised. Believe me, I was surprised. Being a fat girl walking into a gym is very intimidating. But nontheless, I found a stationary bike that looked doable. It was complete with built-in fan, television, and computer system that kept track of my rpm's, heart rate, miles/distance traveled. Pretty snazzy. I ended up riding for 33 minutes with a distance of 4 miles. Not bad. I also tried the new and improved stairmaster and made it 2 flights of stairs. If you knew how bad my knee hurts, you would be impressed. 
