I've been through a fair amount of physio in the past several years for my ankle, my shoulder and my back. It hurts but always feels good after and I've always felt good about going (enjoyed it, even). But this time I was really scared. I have a sense that my post-surgery ankle is much more fragile than my pre-surgery injured ankle. As a result, I was really worried about what would happen at physio. I was tense and it hurt and I had to do deep breathing to get past the pain (which I think now, in hind sight, was really more fear than pain).
Physio consists of the following steps: 1. ultrasound to reduce swelling and other stuff. The metal thing that rubs on my foot feels quite uncomfortable where my foot is still numb (it will take several weeks for the nerve to repair). 2. After ultrasound, I get fitted with TENS pads that connect to a machine that stimulates the foot to reduce pain, apparently. They put ice on top and then turn up the machine as far as I can tolerate (I’ve had this before on my ankle, shoulder, and back!). 3. Then the physio therapist massages the muscles (what’s left of them -- I've had muscle wastage!) in my lower leg and moves my foot forward, backward, left right, around holding each time and pushing much beyond where it wants to go. This hurts.
I have a series of exercises to do at home 3x per day.
That said, I really like the physio therapist and the place I'm going (thank you, Pearl, for recommending it) but after my first appointment, I felt down and discouraged. The next day, I did all my exercises but still felt down (almost inexplicably so). Today, I went to physio again and saw a huge improvement (mostly in my attitude!) but also in my range of motion and how much more easily I can manage the work they do on my foot. So, I'm feeling very positive about things right now and looking forward to each of my physio appointments!
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