Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Play with pain

I mentioned awhile ago that I had somehow hurt my knee, eventually went to a doctor about it, and the doctor sent me to physical therapy. I went twice last week, but it hasn't seemed to be getting better. It will feel better for awhile, then start hurting again. I've been taking the anti-inflammatory that the doctor prescribed, and trying to do the exercises that the physical therapist gave me, but not very industriously.

When I made my appointments for this week, the therapist I'd been seeing was available on Monday morning, but I can't do Monday mornings because of our staff meeting, so I made the appointment for Tuesday. The therapist was off that day, so the receptionist, who was scheduling the appointment, asked me if it was okay if I saw someone else. I liked the woman that I was seeing, and didn't particularly want to see someone else, but I said sure.

So, I went this morning, and it was like night and day! Once I saw someone who actually seemed to know what they were doing, and explained to me what he thought had happened to my knee, and why, and how to fix it, it suddenly made a lot more sense.

And potentially a lot scarier.

I'd been sort of feeling like maybe I was being a sissy about it, that I should just "walk it off" or something, but he said that if I don't treat it aggressively now, I'm probably going to end up having surgery. Now, I say that, but I'm pretty sure that I would have to feel a LOT worse in order to have knee surgery, but I got the point.

The other therapist had told me that I should be icing it, but she never really said much, and I'd been icing it about once a day, if I remembered. The guy today said that I need to be icing it every three hours. He taped up my knee really tightly so that it moved my kneecap, kind of, but it enabled me to do the exercises with a normal range of motion without pain. He showed me some other exercises to do, and said I should get some ankle weights. He said I should probably really be on crutches, but I asked him if I could try his suggestions this week and see how I do, and he said that was fine.

When we were finished, I asked him if it would be okay if I stopped seeing the other therapist, and started seeing him, and he said that wouldn't be a problem, so when I made the appointments for next week, I asked for them with the new guy. I think I'll make a lot more progress that way.

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