Sure, we all know exercise is good. Being overweight is bad. Diabetes, heart disease, cancer, yada yada yada. But something entirely different is hitting home with me right now.
Twice in the past two months, my ankle has just started in with screaming pain and I can’t walk, and it sucks. I went to PT and found that my dumb ankle can’t bend enough to walk properly. I need 15 degrees, and I have about 10. Since I still walk around on it all the time, this makes muscles and ligaments and so on do stuff they aren’t meant to do, to jerry-rig a stride. Then they get tired and pissed off, and, see above, screaming pain.
A large part of the problem is my calf is too tight and the muscle in my shin is too weak. I have to stretch, strengthen, and increase bloodflow to the right areas.
And this is the THIRD injury I’ve had due to similar issues. My neck and upper back seized up because the muscles there got weak while my pecs tightened up incredibly. And my lower back got all messed up because my abs are like jello.
Bottom line - if I had been keeping up with reasonable strength training and stretching, I probably wouldn’t have these problems. It made me realize in a very concrete way that it’s not only cardio, but what the experts say is true - you have to have regular strengthening and stretching to stay healthy.
Exercise just got bumped up several notches on my priority scale. Unfortunately twice-weekly PT has to be higher for now, as if my life isn’t busy enough. But just maybe, I can get with the program and prevent some other part of my body from going, “SPROING - OW!”
…correct this anomoly? I have Burcitis, which is painful sholder and arm “joint?” condition. Doc said nothing about a cure. Oh Yeah, exercise, stretch, and don’t lift weights- which I have to do.
This is the immediate incentive for my weight training / hiking routine. Whenever I’ve let go for a couple months or more (up to a year-and-a-half), I’ve started getting lower back pain, neck pain, stiffness and aches. Nothing clears up these issues better than a 2x10 deadlifting session frequently administered! I can only imagine the kind of a physical wreck I’d be had I never started straining my body the good way.
Surgery often results in scars, temporary weakening and tightening. No big deal if you are healthy otherwise, but if you are already weak or tight, it is kind of a recipe for more pain,weakness and tightness. Even when you do get surgery for bursitis, often you need PT afterwards. Exercise and stretching IS the cure. It just has to be the correct exercise.
Yeah, I had bursitis in my hip many years ago, and a stretching and strengthening regimen, along with some ultrasound therapy, seemed to fix it permanently - I’ve never had another problem with it.
I certainly wouldn’t want to have surgery if I could just do PT and get results. My appendectomy in January not only cost a metric assload of money, it put me completely out of commission for a week and has had physical repercussions that continue to today. Compare to exercise and stretching, which is relatively cheap and simple, makes you feel good, and can usually be integrated into normal life.
I badly strained both calves a little over a year ago running a half-marathon. I heard about this thing, and even though it’s incredibly basic, I started using it just for a minute (or a little longer if my calves were really tight) before and after running, and it made a huge difference. I’m such a dork now, but I’ll use it when I get up in the morning and before I go to bed, and it just makes my legs feel a whole lot better.
This morning I went to my second real physical therapy appointment for my poor sad stress fractured ankle (and, it turns out, all the rest of me that can’t walk or run right.) I hurt. A lot. I need to get some ice.
First, making sure I’m compliant with my seizure meds keeps me seizure free and able to work. When I was younger, I was convinced that medication was bad and did everything I could to get off it. Well, about a month after my doctor had weaned me off (at my insistence), I began having seizures again at work, wound up in the ER and was subsequently terminated from my employment. That was in my early 20s. I’m now 33, have been compliant with my meds for more than 10 years and, in that time, have had two seizures - one an eclamptic seizure with my firstborn and the second when I changed birth control methods and the hormones contained in them made me metabolize my seizure meds at twice the usual rate. So it’s definitely worth sucking it up and getting over my distaste of medications to be able to hold down a job and take care of myself and my family.
Second, while it’s not necessarily expensive monetarily, the way I feel mentally and physically when I take care of myself is certainly worth the time and effort it takes to live a healthier lifestyle.
Plus, weighing less puts a hell of a lot less strain on my joints, making running after my kid easier, even though I’m 6 months pregnant.
