You may remember that I mentioned I was going to start aquatic therapy while I am out on medical leave from my job. Yesterday was my first appointment, "on land", and was really only an assessment. She took a medical history, had me move this way and that, bend over 10 times, etc and felt certain muscles and joints. That was about it.
Four hours later, terrible terrible terrible pain. Doubled my Vicodin ES, but didn't do much. My hands, feet, elbows, shoulder and back were so bad, that I started getting referred pain in my teeth. Hubby and I had planned to go out for dinner at a chain restaurant, and I still wanted to go, but my shoulder was so bad that I couldn't bear my bra straps, so I actually went out bra-less (covered my 42G's under a big bulky sweater) for the first time since I was 11. And food is an excellent pain medication in my book.
Today is better, although I slept until 11 am, still haven't dragged myself into the shower, and I'm achy all over. If this is what I get from just the PT assessment, I'm panicked over what will happen when I actually go for the therapy on Tuesday.
Any form of excercise will help keep your muscles strong. Since our muscles support our joints, it makes sense to try to keep them as healthy as possible.
You may experience some soreness in the beginning, but be diligent...it will pay off. water excercise is excellent!
See... that is why i call PT - Pain & Torture!
I am sure it is just because you do not move in those positions she had your in. So it was your body retaliating. I am sure once you get in the water it will not be so bad on your body.
Good Luck and keep us posted!
Hope you feel better tomorrow
Man, that sounds bad. Hopefully you'll feel better doing those movements in the water. That's what I like about exercising in the water. It takes all the weight off my joints. I don't know what aquatic therapy is but it sure sounds good especially if the water is nice and warm.I think any exercise when you have severe RA and you find it hard to move to do the basic things...is going to hurt at first, no doubt about it but what I found with myself is that it is worth it if I can keep going because I hurt anyway...this is a difficult hurt but if you can keep it up you will feel better.I know that any exercise would hurt at first. This wasn't just soreness last night, it was really, really bad pain. I'm still hurting enough right now that I decided to deal with the hives I have rather than try to get out to the pharmacy for my overdue allergy prescription.
When I did regular PT four years ago it was continued agony for the 12 weeks until the therapist told me we weren't getting anywhere. I do hope it will be better in the water, but judging from my own pool experience over the summer, I'm not holding out lots of hope.
No pain no gai nis a crock but if you haven't moved in a while there will be some muscle pain involved. however you should not be experiencing increased joint pain more than 2 hrs post exercise
InnerGlow,It's definitely possible to be sore after your initial evaluation for physical therapy. In order to get all of the right measurements they have to bend you around so to speak.
Tell your therapist where you were sore. He or she may have you take a tylenol or something before your therapy in the beginning, or if it's a specific area, they may use heat to loosen you up first.
Just be honest with your therapist as much as possible.
My physical therapist suggested that I take a pain med BEFORE I started each session. I definitely felt it after each session but it was worth it in the end as I gained strength.I developed a horrific case of hip bursitis after just 3 sessions of water therapy.
2 years later its still horrific. I firmly believe that not one of the PT's have a clue as to what RA is, in fact they kept talking about my back.. my back is FINE..
I told them specifically I wanted to get help with learning ways to protect the joints and they were trying to make me ride a stationary bike and do a stair climber.
I get exercise I walk a LOT, I cary the kids I garden I do housewwork.. but the damage the PT did is just awful not only that the so called therapy pool wasnt even heated the last 2 times I used it
Thanks for all the suggestions guys. I'm not sure I did a good enough job of giving her the full picture of my pain, but I'll be sure to fix that when I go on Tuesday. It also was a good reminder that I am in control and I can tell them when I can't do it anymore and need to stop. Sometimes it's hard to just speak up.
Geezer, I used to love working on a recumbent bike...that was my favorite exercise because it didn't hurt my lower back and SI joints. But my orthopedist told me no biking at all after I developed an osteochondral injury in my left knee a few years ago. That was the end of my exercise program, with the exception of moving around the pool once in a while in the summer.
As far as medication, I'm already taking Vicodin ES every 6 hours around the clock, 24/7/365, and after my session I took extra. I was leery of taking extra beforehand because 1) I wanted her to understand/see the full extent of my pain and 2) I didn't want to push myself too far because I was artificially feeling good.
I'm definitely going to give the PT a reasonable try. But there's absolutely no way I could have done this while I was working.
Now we'll see how Tuesday goes, although I realized that my RD appt is right afterwards, so I'll be racing around to shower and change and get there, all while I'll likely be hurting pretty bad. But at least the RD will see how I'm affected.
I just finished PT after having it for a year. During that time we started