Progress / I'm not making this up.

[da]

My physiotherepist has given me a passing grade for this stage of work and I'm not to see her until late February.  

She gave me a sheet of exercises to continue, and added one which stretches the nerves from the wrist all the way up the arm.  It hurts, but I'll try and do it because it does seem to help.  And the name of the exercise is wonderful.

I'm under orders by a trained medical professional to perform neural flossing on a regular basis.

Comments

[mynatt.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear you're doing okay.

If I haven't told you this before, though, don't overdue nerve stretches! It really hurts. Just be careful.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Thanks- I can only imagine. She emphasized to me that it's not supposed to stretch the nerves, only loosen the stuff holding it in place from moving.

I was honestly getting slightly squicked just listening to how nerve bundles work and how they're supposed to be able to slide around longitudinally- even though they're not like brake cables in a housing, it's more like tree-root structures, through muscle. Weeeeird. :)

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

Ew. That makes me scared, too.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

It was mostly fun talking shop with her. I figure it's only squicky to me if I think about it working inside my own body- but the nervous system is totally fascinating as physical machinery, and that mostly won out so I wanted to ask more questions.

Cutting up a chicken is squicky if you think about it too closely as well, right? :)

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

I guess. But I've done that dozens of times, and it doesn't cause pain to living creatures.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

No, but it could make the machinery a bit too visually obvious if you let it...

I'm gonna shut up now though, before you get permanently turned off from cutting up chickens. :)

[mynatt.livejournal.com]

Really, it's not hard to do it right, you just have to have the necessary information.

I love how good physiotherapists show patients anatomical models and explain in detail how your body works, so that you can take care of it yourself. It's like being handed the user's manual :)

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Exactly. We talked today about how those of us who sit in front of a computer are setting ourselves up for bad (correctable) damage, and how many folks she sees from this demographic group, and there are so many relatively easy things we can do to help. (I know so few people who use lumbar rolls or really change their position very often at their chairs...)

"user's manual": I think it would super-cool if the Car Talk guys were medically trained instead of auto mechanics. :) "Ok, your elbow is hurting because you've got a radial head sprain. Have you been to the mechanic, er, doctor?"

[mynatt.livejournal.com]

Right -- just keep in mind that nerves have no elasticity. Trust me, you'll know if you overdo it. These exercises really helped me, though (once I learnt how to do them), so I hope they work for you too.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Oh, I do as well. In addition to the posture stuff, which is a big win, the stuff she did to me lying on the table has been beneficial- my arm movement range is better, my neck-range is better, and I don't seem to have any sort of neck pain at all. So, I'll do the exercises, so long as I can discipline myself to take the time for it!

[mynatt.livejournal.com]

I find an elementary school style star chart with cute stickers helps. Surely melted_snowball can think of some appropriate reward if you complete a month's worth of exercises faithfully.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

Isn't that usually suited to bed wetting? :-P

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

That said, I am in favour of a more flexible da_lj.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

I'm practising my eye-rolls right now, but you can't see it.

[melted-snowball.livejournal.com]

*shrug* whatever bit of flexibility you prefer, m'dear... :-)