It hurts... and I hope it's doing some good :(

[thefoxaroo]

A short while ago I was reading the reply to one of my E-mails, part of which describes the ordeals I'm going through at the moment and I remembered that I should be using LiveJournal to let everyone know as well. I'm a bit slow that way

Comments

[alaskawolf]

physical rehab can really be a pain but it does help out a lot in the long run.

i hope all goes well

[thefoxaroo]

Thanks Alaskawolf.

Yeah, I keep telling myself "no pain, no gain." A day may come soon where I might need that arm to save my life...
...I do after all travel on Cityrail after all ;)

[ccdesan]

Cope by realizing that it's going to make you better. And stronger. Good luck, and keep after it.

[thefoxaroo]

(Strikes movie clapboard and tries again without the dyslexic mistakes...)

E'yup! That's what I'm doing! ;)

Michael J. Fox and Robert Zemeckis developed a saying during the Back to the Future trilogy "Pain is temporary, film is forever" meaning that you can achieve permanent and lasting success if you endure some brief hardship.

Although I often wonder if Fox's willingness to perform his own stunts brought about an injury which caused his Parkinson's disease. :( On that side of the coin I also need to be careful to push it. The pain in that towel exercise worries me a lot.

[deckardcanine]

Incidentally, I recently watched a movie in which the main actor, not a stunt double, broke some ribs: Hellboy. It occurs to me that Ron Perlman was in his 50s doing an action role.

[thefoxaroo]

Sounds like Buster Keaton; he continued to perform hazardous stunts well into his late years.

I'm a firm believer that stunts should be left to the stuntmen/stuntwomen. They've had the training, they know the technique and they can better assess all the risks.

A grey area is situations like in the cast of The Matrix who had to learn martial arts skills for the role. It would be very difficult to substitute stunt performers for such scenes. I haven't made up my mind how I feel about that.

[deckardcanine]

Oh dear. I don't think I've ever been in enough pain to prevent me from moving a certain way. (I'd knock on wood, but I think I deserve it.) Hope you recover well.

[thefoxaroo]

Thanks. :)

At present the muscles are too tight. The exercises are designed to stretch them and in time restore movement to the arm. Performing them correctly though is excruciating.

[sleepyjohn00]

I've been working with a personal trainer for some time. The most critical part of any exercise is not how much weight you lift, it's which muscle groups you use to do it. A simple bicep curl, where you are lifting a weight up and down? Keep your shoulders flat, keep your abdomen tight, don't jerk back and forth with the motion, don't overextend, don't lift too high... The people on the weight machines flopping all over aren't getting half the good they would get with less weight and better form.

If you use other muscle groups to compensate for the weakened ones, all you do is train your body to use the wrong muscles. It's maddening, and it can hurt like open heart surgery with a soldering iron, but if you want the right results, you need to do the right exercises. Tell the therapist if you feel something's going wrong, but try to do it they way they want. Sorry.

[thefoxaroo]

sleepyjohn00 said:"If you use other muscle groups to compensate for the weakened ones, all you do is train your body to use the wrong muscles.", Shall I get some eggs so that you can teach me to suck them?

I'm already aware of this, and everything else you've said.

scottrell001 said:"when the healthy muscles try to perform the work instead of those that are healing. To perform the exercises correctly I need to stand in front of a mirror and keep an eye on the shape of my shoulder to ensure that I'm moving the arm correctly."

[sleepyjohn00]

it was meant as reinforcement and encouragement. Doing exercises that hurt and don't seem to be doing anything is very discouraging. But I suppose you know that already, too.

[thefoxaroo]

Answer: Yes, but I try not to look at it that way. Just as an injury can be insidious, the healing is not always imediately evident. I think the range of movement on my arm is increasing little by little, but any results will indeed take a while.

As for reinforcement and encouragement, I had enough "reinforcement and encouragement" from certain CTC related threads. I could give the exact URLs, but I don't want the men in black doing any more damage control.

[carlfoxmarten]

I'm really not sure what to say about this, but I do know that too much pain means there's a problem...

I don't know if or how much you take already, but taking some vitamins might be a good idea.
(specifically vitamin C and calcium. If your body is low on calcium, it starts to take it from your bones, which might lead to higher-than-normal amounts in the wrong parts of your body)

Other than that, keep your therapist informed of things and I'm sure things will work themselves out.

[thefoxaroo]

That's a very good point. I'd better keep an eye on my diet over the next couple of months.

Ironically, I've just this moment come back from shopping! :roll: I should have stocked up on the high-calcium soy milk. Oh well, at least I have plenty of citrus fruit.

[thefoxaroo]

Sorry, I missed the 1st sentence.

Well... everyone warned me to expect to feel sore. The exercise with the towel worries me a bit, but my arm has gradually been less sore each time, and I've been able to raise it a tiny bit higher each day.

I have another (expensive) session with the physiotherapist Thursday afternoon. Hopefully I'll get a few answers then.

One utterly stupid mistake I made was that I forgot to bring my x-rays and other documentation on my 1st visit. I'll remember to do so on Thursday.