Hi ! Things have been getting better for me - I have been virtually pain free for the past two weeks, consider that I had been in pain for over a year ! I reckon it’s because I am following my intuition regarding how to treat my shoulder problems. The work and exercises the physiotherapists gave me caused more problems, even the rheumatologist believes that too - so I’m just recovering from the damage they caused. The trouble with physiotherapists, at least the ones I’ve come across, is that they don’t take an individual’s unique physiology into account but just treat everyone the same. They didn’t take into account my pectus excavatum (depressed sternum) and kyphosis, they put things down to poor posture when these are a genetic issue with me, my son has the same too (I wonder sometimes if I have mild Marfans, what with bicuspid aortic valve, big feet and big hands and a small jaw, but obviously not overt enough signs to be diagnosed), plus they didn’t take into account my sternotomy which is still causing costochondritis. I was given massage which irritated a nerve in my shoulder because no account was taken of the fact that I’m thin, and the stretching exercises just pulled already damaged tendons. I’m now doing gentle weight lifting, hoping to increase that as I get more good feedback from my body.
The weather here near London is quite nice for the time of year. I managed to do some gardening yesterday afternoon, doing full squats as I was working digging up weeds and picking up sticks blown down from a tree when we had high winds last weekend.
Your journey sounds very adventurous jwinter ! And, SuperBob, hope your back pain gets less, believe me I’ve had a ton of that too and it interferes with both activities and rest.
PS - even the physiotherapist at the hospital when I had AVR didn't get things, she told me off for not breathing right while disregarding the fact that I have small airways disease and that I'd been given the wrong type of inhaler by the hospital, and the next day x-ray showed I had pleural effusions which would have meant I couldn't breathe deeply anyway ! You would have thought they'd put two and two together, doh. I obviously have bad luck with physios !
