Can't complain about that. The gym I go to has a regular pool and a warm-water therapy pool. The warm-water pool is heaven on earth. It's kept at 92F. Not near as hot as a hot tub, but still very comfortable, even when you first get in! Very relaxing, but not too hot to do some light water exercises. Perhaps there's a gym near you with such a pool? They're typically in gyms/health clubs associated with hospital campuses. My gym is also home to a rehabilitation/physical therapy practice as well as a sports medicine practice, so it's not uncommon to see those patients working with their therapists either in the pool or out in the gym. They also have Arthritis Foundation exercise classes - both land and aquatics.
I was reading an Arthritis Today in my GP's office and it said that if you are flaring the most you should do is stretching exercises. And if you did not feel that you could exercise without pain not to attempt to exercise because the old saying no pain no gain was not true and that it would probably do more harm than good to the flaring joints.
Suzanne -
I had the same probem, often my disease would seem to flare with exercise. But, from all I'm reading with studies, we need to push on. We reduce inflammatory cylotines (spelling) when we exercise. So, if you can't do simple stretching exercises, how about a small walk? Or just up and down a lane at the pool? Nothing to get the joints into a tizzy, but enough to release the anti-inflam effects? If you did something everyday, then eventually the exercise would help.
Pip
Thank you all for your thoughts and advice. I appreciate it!
The pool I used at PT (actually inside a YMCA) was 88-91 degrees and the pool I'm thinking of joining is the same. But even doing too much in there, and I don't mean swimming, just walking exercises and stretching exercises, would send me into 4-6 days of not being able to move. If it's just a night of terrible pain, and the next day some elevated pain, I could push on through, but when it gets to be several days, then I have to start from scratch once I can move again.
Unfortunately walking on land is really difficult because of my partial herniations at L3-L4, L4-L5, and L5-S1 as well as SI joint pain and an osteochondral injury in my knee, and why don't we throw in some old ankle injuries that never healed properly, too. That's why I was hoping the epidural would help so I could do more. We'll see what happens after the second one on May 1st.
I really can't take a hot tub as I am very sensitive to heat. One of the days when the pool at therapy was a little too hot (they couldn't find the thermometer so I'm not sure how hot), I got palpitations for 24 hours. So 88 degrees will be plenty for me.
What the ortho said just really scared me, because is not a coddling type of doctor. He'd normally be the first one to say exercise. I wonder if he's giving up on me. When I explained how the PT would sometimes make me worse, I never said it in a "I want to quit" sort of way. In fact, he was asking me what I thought brought on my latest elevation of symptoms, and PT was the answer. InnerGlow2008-04-23 09:10:27hi innerglow sorry to see you are in this position.. i have never been told not to walk
but i am unable to use the hydrotherapy pool due to slight instability of the neck..
for some reason having the instability and using the pool causes dizzyness..
this is how the instability was found.. i wonderd what has caused this damage to you.
is it ra or something else..
wishing you well.. Boney
The disc problems I've had for more than a decade while the RA has only been the last two years. When I got my first epidural years ago (cervical), the doctors there kept asking when my accident was and I had a difficult time convincing them I hadn't been in one. That said, I've spoken with many people having degenerative dics problems that don't seem to have a specific cause or trigger. However, it seems to be unusual (though hardly unheard of) for someone at my age to have multiple levels in the cervical and lumbar areas without some sort of event. I just be lucky, I guess.hi innerglow.. thanks for the explain. it gives a better picture and understanding
of what is happening to you.. i hope the docs can help you out. and get you some relief.
Boney
Innerglow, gawd I soo relate!!!
The day before, i had one of the worst days of my RA life, i had just gone to the mailbox and stretched a tiny teen amt.. my worker thinks it was that, i think it was the heater being off?
Who knows? I used to love to swim, now i dread it.. I walked around my parking lot and got into a horrible flare..
So , I AGREE w/ your DR....just don't exercise, it sucks, its not healthy.. but is it worth the pain?? for me.. noo...
The more I've tried, the worse it gets... , I don't have all your back problems, i'm soo sick of this disease and every time, I try and do something "small" and belive me, I mean tiny,
it hits me like a truck... sooo... listen to your dr..
maybe for some of us, it does make our joints much worse, instead of better..
I think in the last yr, i've been able to walk a block, hmm maybe 3=5 x.. This year...
w/o a flare... any other time.. OW.. and i'm in bed, too..
I hate this disease and i'm really grumpy tonight, bc i feel uggy!..
so i get what you're saying and hugs~
ps: for those who CAN exercise w/o majorly hurting yourself, cool, but please be compassionate and patience w/ us, where exercise does more harm, then good...
HI Suzanne, you and I are sounding very similar, I was walking daily, really pushing myself, bu now they have told me walking is not good for "me" as I have another metatarsal fracture, and my hips and spine (degenerative disc disease and surgery L5/S1, disc herniation L4/L5, I felt this news was coming as I kept having problems walking with numbness in my feet, terrible hip and back pain etc etc, so now my RD has recommended hydrotherapy which I try and do but the pool is just a little bit too far, we do have a pool but it is nowhere near warm enough at this time of year. I have taken his advice and hired a recumbent exercise bike, you sort of sit back in a low chair so there is little pressure on your spine and cycle away. Maybe you could ask your Doc, I tend to do what I feel I can as only I know and I have to try and move this weight off of me, its a real dilemma! Best of luck, Janie.
I used to love the exercise bike I have, and the recumbent bikes even more. It was the one exercise I could do on land without my low back bothering me. But the ortho nixed that 2 years ago when I developed an osteochondral injury in my left knee (stepdaughter's puppy got under my feet and I twisted as I fell backward). He told me that for the rest of my life, I have to be careful going up and down stairs, especially when I'm near the top, because that knee could just give out on me. So it was really great that at work I had to go up and down the 8 steps outside my office all day long, usually at top speed. But I haven't had to do that since November, when I went out on disability. But the ortho said no more bikes and recommended I buy a first floor condo (which I did).I can empathize, I have physical limitations that restrict my exercise options, but can you do isometrics? I do them for my thigh and butt muscles -- you tighten the muscles, hold it, then release and repeat. I do them while watching tv and it helps to keep my thigh muscles from getting too weak so I can still get out of a chair. And, could you use those exercise bands? They come in different "stretchiness," and you can use them in exercise, movements, to strengthen arm, leg muscles. These suggestions don't give you a "cardio" workout, but just help from muscles getting too weak, so when you feel better, you won't be too out of shape to start exercising again. I am overweight and am told over and over to loose weight. But i can't move. How can i do that if i can't move. Raise my pred 5mg more and i can go do water arobics and exercise bicycles, until then, I can't move.
They drive me nuts. They don't want to up pred due to long term destruction that "can" be fixed by pills. But, they leave me swollen with RA day after day and could stop that with more pred.
I believe i will have more damage without pred than with.
I too have been told to lose weight and my answer is always "as soon as you can reduce the daily pain and allow me to move, then we'll talk". Not only is the lack of exercise making it difficult, but if your pain isn't controlled, you do whatever you can to make yourself comfortable, including eating comfort food. Especially if you can't shop and cook for yourself.
Please don't tell me that my food is what is causing my pain...even if that's the case and it's a vicious cycle (which I don't believe), I'm not doing anything about it until this pain gets under control. Also, I find it fascinating that when I'm feeling (relatively) better, the weight just drops off on its own without me doing any additional exercise or eating any differently. But when I am having worse times, the weight piles on, again with nothing else different. Have to think there's something chemical going on there.
My visiting nurse (for my Orencia infusion) started down that road of telling me to lose weight and when I gave him my standard answer above, he said "this is not a negotiation". I said "you're right, it's not, because you can't force me to lose weight". That shut him right up....and that's not an easy task from what I've seen.
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