Physical Therapy

As a Christmas present this year, my mother sent me to a physical therapist. All I can say is "Wow."

Briefly, my right lower back has been acting out like crazy for something over six months. Somewhere in the middle of that, my right ankle decided that now was an excellent time to develop tendonitis.

The tendonitis started when I was in college, and got very, very bad in my early twenties. I blame the tendonitis for a number of things, not least of which being that I gained a lot of weight gradually after college because moving was damn near impossible for several years on end. We tried a lot of stuff with the tendonitis, and eventually it receded, possibly due to a course of what I like to think of as electroshock therapy for my ankles--a process involving a TENS unit, little electrodes taped to me, and a cheerful lab tech who hooked me up and left me to be zapped while I read the paper.

Anyway, it was back, albeit only in one ankle, plus my back hurt. I was hobbling around like I was eighty, and not one of those spry eighty-year-olds who take tennis lessons either.

I went to a doctor in November, who barely glanced at the back. She bent me in a couple of directions, didn't know what it was, and shrugged. She was, however, worried about the ankle, which was, at that point, at its absolute tendonitisy best, so freaked out that I could hardly put weight on it, let alone use it to lift. She recommended the physical therapist. (She also wanted to discuss my weight, or rather, pass comments on it, and the screaming fury this sent me in to may well have been one of the culminating events leading up to my current diet.)

The physical therapist though...wow. I was almost in tears during the exam. He took the pain seriously. He asked a lot of questions. He gave me exercises, and they are actually working. For the first time in months, I'm waking up without intense pain in my hip.

I'm sold.

(Also, eight, possibly nine pounds lighter since the beginning of the year. I am mighty.)