Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Pushup Update, Updated
Just for those who are interested in how this impacts strength at any given time, I have another update. Earlier I mentioned I had worked up to ten pushups again, after not being able to do even one for well over a year. I tried again the very next day, and I had trouble finishing ten. I tried again after a couple of days, and I was back down to two. This is a bit odd to me, but I guess that is the way NA works? It seems you can only get back to a set amount of muscle use after the loss of that use, and then the muscle gets so fatigued after a couple of days of that exercise that it drops back down again to prior levels? Here I thought maybe my strength was returning a bit, but now it seems like it is back to almost as low as it ever was. I am not sure this is the normal progression in cases like this, but it is what I am seeing in my own case.
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my son hasn't been able to use his rt arm above the elbow for 7 months now. there hasn't been even the slightest healing after the last emg. your day sounds much like his. very frustrating, i know. he does a lot of compensation, as you have described. as for myself, i try to deal with constant muscle fatigue through out my body, nerve pain through out lumbar/sacral plexus, deep bone pain in both arms. the spoon theory is much how i have had to live my life for the past 14 years. i still feel like i am really young and would like to do something more with my life than i am. i have been recovering from last attack in lumbar/sacral plexus for 6 years and it has been soooooooooooooooooooooo long this time. it has only been this past year that i have been able to walk one mile everyday. i can tell you that i did try PT many different times, but the nerve pain that i experienced was only made worse by any movement. if i went anywhere like grochery shopping, i would be in bed for 3 days in extreme pain. so i had to rehab myself at home. little by little, tai chi was first, then yoga, then walking. now, i move as much as possible. still in pain but much healthier.
ReplyDeleteTwo things that PT did help me with were increasing scapula stability, and increasing my impacted arm mobility.
ReplyDeleteWorking with the scapula, the PT showed me that by just tensing the shoulder as if I were pulling the arm against my side that it helped pull the scapula into place a bit. Just a bit, and it really does not replace the lost muscle, but it does help make the joint feel more stable in use.
And with upper arm mobility, once they determined that my tendons were not inflamed, and that my arm could be raised (by the PT lifting it) over my head, I was told that I could help strengthen the muscles that do the lifting, and stretch the tendons at the same time. This was done by facing a wall at about arms length distance, and raising the arm as high as comfortable against the wall, and then walking my hand up the wall as I moved closer to the wall. When I got as high as I could stand it for the attempt, they said to try to keep the arm at that height as I backed away from the wall, and to lower it as slowly as I could under my own power. When I started doing this originally I pretty much could not get my arm up, and had very little strength to lower it slowly. It pretty much just dropped down on its own. But, over time, I regained the ability to raise my arm almost as well as before, for short times anyway. I still have no sustained use of it overhead. But, I think if I had not kept those exercises up, I may not have ever gotten any use back.
From what you say of your lumbar/sacral plexus attacks, I am dreading any sort of attack like that. But, I know it will do what it will do. I think I realized two things during my last attack. First, I had a new definition for the worst pain I had ever felt in my life. And second, I knew that whatever it was that was causing this, it would not ever go away. Well, I knew the pain had to stop eventually. But what I mean is that I had an awareness that somehow this was being caused by something that would always be there in my life (if it had not always been there before). As nice as it felt to have the pain diminish, the thought that something had changed for me, and that this would return at some point- well, it was not a thought that was good to have in the middle of the night after not sleeping.