Weak Ass, a Diagnosis
Jun. 22nd, 2025 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouse As you know, gentle reader, I've been hiking a lot in the great northwoods. What I may not have told you is how much my right foot has been hurting afterward and how much I thought that the problem was an aging hip that might need replacement.
Good news! The physical therapist I saw on Wednesday is pretty sure my hip joints are doing all right. What he diagnosed me with, instead, was a weak ass. Obviously, that's not what he said. What he said was that my butt has a lot of muscles and I got out of the habit of using a number of them regularly. The ones I stopped using were degrading my gait. Basically, certain muscles had atrophied from being so sedentary and I'd developed the old lady waddle.
Phase one of treatment is to wake up my dead ass muscles. So, I have a whole series of five or so exercises to keep me busy. They're easy stretchy excercises, however, three of which I can do lying down, two I can do while sitting, and one I can do while standing. Because I'm married to Shawn Rounds, PT Queen and Project Manager, I suspect I will have no trouble being reminded to do my exercises. At any rate, I see my physical therapist in two weeks to check on my progress.
A couple of funny stories about the appointment.
First, when I did the intake form, they ask a lot of questions that made me realize that a LOT of people who go to PT regularly are in much, much worse shape than I am. So, at one point, in the margins I wrote, "I'm fat, but otherwise healthy!" Jake, my physical therapist, found this deeply charming and told me so.
I then charmed him again when he asked me to lie on my side for one so I could try one of the exercises and I said, "Wait, I should take out some of the things in my pockets." Out of my pockets came: my keys, about a dozen foreign coins, my inhailer, and three cool rocks. I could see him looking at this collection of things wanting to say something, so I explained, "You know the meme that where it says 'the worst thing about being an adult is that no one ever shows you a cool rock anymore'? Well, do you want to see a cool rock?" Jake found this oddly delightful.
Which, frankly, is my best feature. Being odd and delightful.
Good news! The physical therapist I saw on Wednesday is pretty sure my hip joints are doing all right. What he diagnosed me with, instead, was a weak ass. Obviously, that's not what he said. What he said was that my butt has a lot of muscles and I got out of the habit of using a number of them regularly. The ones I stopped using were degrading my gait. Basically, certain muscles had atrophied from being so sedentary and I'd developed the old lady waddle.
Phase one of treatment is to wake up my dead ass muscles. So, I have a whole series of five or so exercises to keep me busy. They're easy stretchy excercises, however, three of which I can do lying down, two I can do while sitting, and one I can do while standing. Because I'm married to Shawn Rounds, PT Queen and Project Manager, I suspect I will have no trouble being reminded to do my exercises. At any rate, I see my physical therapist in two weeks to check on my progress.
A couple of funny stories about the appointment.
First, when I did the intake form, they ask a lot of questions that made me realize that a LOT of people who go to PT regularly are in much, much worse shape than I am. So, at one point, in the margins I wrote, "I'm fat, but otherwise healthy!" Jake, my physical therapist, found this deeply charming and told me so.
I then charmed him again when he asked me to lie on my side for one so I could try one of the exercises and I said, "Wait, I should take out some of the things in my pockets." Out of my pockets came: my keys, about a dozen foreign coins, my inhailer, and three cool rocks. I could see him looking at this collection of things wanting to say something, so I explained, "You know the meme that where it says 'the worst thing about being an adult is that no one ever shows you a cool rock anymore'? Well, do you want to see a cool rock?" Jake found this oddly delightful.
Which, frankly, is my best feature. Being odd and delightful.
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Date: 2025-06-22 08:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-22 11:16 pm (UTC)And I should note that the exercises do already seem to be working, at least for managing the pain. So, I think this whole physical therapy thing is a good deal!
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Date: 2025-06-22 09:08 pm (UTC)I really love physical therapists. Some medical professionals seem deeply thrown off their stride by people who are not dead normal, but PTs seem to really love it. My quirk was not as charming, but my weird sleep schedule delighted my second therapist no end and I was so surprised. (Usually I get a lecture about it.)
Cool rocks are much better, though! I think they would charm a wider range of personalities.
P.
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Date: 2025-06-22 11:17 pm (UTC)And, I'm really glad it's not my hips too!
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Date: 2025-06-23 06:25 am (UTC)P.
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Date: 2025-06-23 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-23 02:33 pm (UTC)No pocket knife?
I've had to start rotating my pocket rock collection through the pocket. Four at a time was too many. But they're all so cool!
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Date: 2025-06-23 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-23 04:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-23 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-24 06:01 pm (UTC)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.
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Date: 2025-06-24 07:30 pm (UTC)On the other hand, i am not taking anything on right now.
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Date: 2025-06-25 10:42 am (UTC)