Physical therapy, and an apology

[redbird]

First, I apologize for messing up people's friends pages; I've now fixed it. If you don't want to click a suspect cut tag, the gist of the previous message is that I am selling the Travelzoo stock that I got because it seemed worth asking for, a few years ago, online. Free money, essentially. r_ness, next time we get together, I'm buying dinner/lunch/what-have-you.

Second, I have seen the physical therapist (Larry). It took longer than I expected, mostly because it started later; my future appointments will be either Saturdays, or 8:30 or so (a.m.) on weekdays. He asked some questions, tested my range of motion and asked what if anything hurt, and said he was pleasantly surprised. (This morning my shoulder was in good shape, at least subjectively.)

We discussed exercises: he likes the ones the orthopedist gave me, and added one variation, in which I lean against the wall and push down on the right shoulder with my left hand. Then they hooked me up to an electrical device, which made tinglings in different parts of my shoulder, and put a heating pad on that shoulder (simultaneously). After a while of that, Larry came back in, and massaged my shoulder, which felt very nice. Then they iced it for a few minutes.

My orthopedist's office thinks eight visits is probably enough, because the physical therapist is a teacher. Well, maybe in many cases, but the other stuff he's doing can't easily be duplicated at home. Massage, maybe, though my friend who is best at massage is an inconvenient distance away. But the PA from the orthpedist's office says the massage and electricity provide temporary relief, but the main thing is the exercises.

Comments

[jenett]

I adore the TENS/electrostim unit stuff. It's really amazing how good it feels afterwards, isn't it?

[lynnal.livejournal.com]

but the main thing is the exercises

Yep, that's my understanding from talking to trainers and therapists. Your shoulder has a good reason for hurting, which ice, massage and rest will help. Once it has healed past the point where you don't want to move it, the only way to keep from getting hurt again is to strengthen the appropriate muscles. Then the muscles take the stress, not the joint.
Now if I could just find the right set of exercises to protect my knees from the stresses of aikido and dancing on alternate days... I want the colored diagram on a monitor showing which muscles I'm using when I exercise. And a program that tells me which ones I'm neglecting and what I can do to strengthen those too.

[mneme]

You didn't mess up mine, despite my unwisely leaving cut tags off.

This is mostly because I've gone to great pains to avoid having a single table for my friends page (for the same reason I auto-expand cut tags, because I sometimes read lj on the phone), which makes the page much harder to mess up. Possible, but harder.