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Apr. 8th, 2008 11:22 amLast week brought home a couple of lessons to me. I'm writing them down in hopes that that will help me remember them. The first one is coherent enough to post. The second isn't yet and so may not see daylight for a few weeks, if at all. (It's about my eating patterns, and I keep digressing into stuff that's not really relevant but that also isn't exactly irrelevant.)
I saw a physical therapist on Wednesday. That was a referral from the neurologist. The idea was to try to loosen my shoulders and neck to reduce the frequency of the tension headaches. Once I started paying attention to the tension headaches, I realized that I pretty much always had one. It was just usually low enough on the pain scale that I could ignore it.
(Few medications help my tension headaches. Most sedatives just increase them. The exceptions are alcohol (which has a lot of negatives that make it not worthwhile), Tylenol 3 and vicodin. The last two are controlled substances that many doctors won't prescribe and certainly wouldn't prescribe for minor pain. I prefer them when tension headaches get bad because I don't get many side effects from either as long as I don't take them for more than a couple of days. After a day or two, they effect my digestion in annoying ways that are only acceptable if I'm otherwise really, really sick. That is, I'll take them on a prolonged basis for asthmatic bronchitis or for pain bad enough to make taking care of Delia otherwise impossible but not for anything more trivial.)
The physical therapist worked on my back and ribs. She said there was no point working on my shoulders when things lower down weren't right. My vertebrae weren't moving properly, and one of my ribs was stuck. I don't completely understand what she was talking about because I couldn't see it, but she was very gentle about it. She also worked on my face and scalp to release tension points. I was very surprised that she could do so much so gently.
I'll be seeing her again, not as many times as we hoped. She wanted me in twice a week for the rest of the month, but she has no openings at all next week, and the receptionist and I had to work to fit one half hour appointment in each of the weeks after that. Some of it is my schedule, but a lot of it is that they're booked. Supposedly, they'll call me if they get any last minute openings, but I'm really not in a position to take advantage of those. Also, I have a chronic problem, one that's not going to be catastrophic if ignored for a month.
After this month, I need to talk to our insurance about regular PT. I suspect that it's not going to be an option from their side. I'll also have to look into either massage or a chiropractor. I knew my muscles were tense, but I didn't realize that there were things that should move and didn't or just how much pain forty years of accumulated tension was causing.
Sadly, I started hurting again fairly quickly. My purse and my backpack demand a lot of my shoulders. I need a bag of holding-- something that can carry everything necessary and weigh next to nothing. Still, I've had less in the way of headaches since, just a migraine on Sunday that I suspect was due to poor sleep.
I saw a physical therapist on Wednesday. That was a referral from the neurologist. The idea was to try to loosen my shoulders and neck to reduce the frequency of the tension headaches. Once I started paying attention to the tension headaches, I realized that I pretty much always had one. It was just usually low enough on the pain scale that I could ignore it.
(Few medications help my tension headaches. Most sedatives just increase them. The exceptions are alcohol (which has a lot of negatives that make it not worthwhile), Tylenol 3 and vicodin. The last two are controlled substances that many doctors won't prescribe and certainly wouldn't prescribe for minor pain. I prefer them when tension headaches get bad because I don't get many side effects from either as long as I don't take them for more than a couple of days. After a day or two, they effect my digestion in annoying ways that are only acceptable if I'm otherwise really, really sick. That is, I'll take them on a prolonged basis for asthmatic bronchitis or for pain bad enough to make taking care of Delia otherwise impossible but not for anything more trivial.)
The physical therapist worked on my back and ribs. She said there was no point working on my shoulders when things lower down weren't right. My vertebrae weren't moving properly, and one of my ribs was stuck. I don't completely understand what she was talking about because I couldn't see it, but she was very gentle about it. She also worked on my face and scalp to release tension points. I was very surprised that she could do so much so gently.
I'll be seeing her again, not as many times as we hoped. She wanted me in twice a week for the rest of the month, but she has no openings at all next week, and the receptionist and I had to work to fit one half hour appointment in each of the weeks after that. Some of it is my schedule, but a lot of it is that they're booked. Supposedly, they'll call me if they get any last minute openings, but I'm really not in a position to take advantage of those. Also, I have a chronic problem, one that's not going to be catastrophic if ignored for a month.
After this month, I need to talk to our insurance about regular PT. I suspect that it's not going to be an option from their side. I'll also have to look into either massage or a chiropractor. I knew my muscles were tense, but I didn't realize that there were things that should move and didn't or just how much pain forty years of accumulated tension was causing.
Sadly, I started hurting again fairly quickly. My purse and my backpack demand a lot of my shoulders. I need a bag of holding-- something that can carry everything necessary and weigh next to nothing. Still, I've had less in the way of headaches since, just a migraine on Sunday that I suspect was due to poor sleep.
