lydamorehouse | (Reply)

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I'm glad that you got some exercises that help with the pain. That has never been my experience with PT, but I seem to be in the minority.

On the occasions that I have gone to PT with a specific complaint I was assigned exercises that probably made me stronger but had either no effect on the specific pain I was trying to treat or just made it hurt more. Not in a bad "ouch, I tore something" way - just in the sense that repetitions of strength exercises always hurts. In fact, just last month I finally got some X-Rays of my knees and back and agreed to give PT a try again. The X-Rays showed minimal arthritis (which is what I really wanted to know). But that doesn't explain why my left knee always hurts. And frankly, I am skeptical of the default comment that Physical Therapists always start with: "Pain is caused by muscle weakness."

But you seem to have gotten a much more specific diagnosis than I did and some exercises for specific muscles. I just got encouragement to increase my walking and biking (which I was doing anyway) and a couple of very generic lower-body exercises: side leg lifts and that standup-sitdown thing. I'm sure these are good for me (I mean, there must be a reason that every exercise class in the world includes exercises like that). I have been doing the exercises for a couple of weeks and do feel a little bit stronger and steadier on my feet, which is good. But my knees hurt just as much as ever, and my back hurts more (at least in the morning - I stiffen up alarmingly overnight).

But Pamela is right, Physical Therapists are probably the nicest people in the world and I could use some encouragement to keep exercising and get back "into shape." I'm just not sure it's worth $40 to get kudos for adding 3 more leg-lifts to my daily regimen and doing more biking.