Stoneage Ramblings

By John R. Stone

Over the years I’ve had numerous occasions to use the services of Glacial Ridge Health System here in Glenwood. I get my regular checkups here and in February had surgery for a ruptured Achilles tendon performed by Dr. Alissa Redding.

The next step in the recovery process was physical therapy (PT). PT is an essential part of recovery. Over the years this is the sixth or seventh time I’ve been in PT for a variety of maladies. And the process has worked well for me.

There was a torn meniscus in my knee, damaged rotator cuff from a skiing accident, numbness in a leg if I drove a car too long (like over 20 minutes), a numbness episode again and vertigo. I had surgery for none of the above, fixing it was a matter of developing more strength in the proper muscle groups.

The rotator cuff damage meant I couldn’t lift my left arm up. That meant putting on a shirt was more of a project. A couple of months of building specific muscle groups did the trick.

What one can forget, and I did, was that if you don’t use muscles you can go right back to where you were before. A few years ago I could no longer lift my arm again. So I went back to the exercises and the arm seems fine now.

The largest project until now was the numbness in my leg that was an indicator a lower back nerve issue.

I went to the clinic and was immediately referred to PT. Craig Curry, head of the department, came to get me for my appointment and saw me sitting in a waiting room chair kind of slouched down. He immediately pointed out that was probably part of my problem: poor sitting posture.

I’d been sitting that way for years. In my reporter role slouching in a chair made it easier to take notes in a notebook leaning against my leg. I don’t know how many hours I’d done that over the years but it was too many!

He started me on a set of exercises designed to build my core and I started doing them. I started to see some improvement, that 20 minutes before numbness set in or so started to get longer. I also started paying attention when I sat in a chair, no slouching. After about a year I was up to several hours before numbness set in and at two years there was no numbness, not even after eight or more hours behind the wheel on some of our road trips.

I learned my lesson with the shoulder issue, I still do those back (and arm) exercises first thing every morning and that seems to keep everything working fine.

The weirdest issue was the vertigo. The first time it struck I went to the clinic and an appointment with a specialist was arranged in Alexandria where a specialist from CentraCare came once a month.

Fifteen years later when it struck again I went to the clinic and was referred to PT. That was different I thought at the time, no specialist. Curry worked with me again, he was one of two PT people at the clinic at the time who had been trained to treat vertigo. At the time they were among 200 certified in the technique nationally. Michael Vig, who worked with me on my Achilles recovery, was the other.

Now the project is strengthening my right calf muscle that was idle after nearly three months in a boot and splint. One loses a lot of strength as I’m sure others with broken legs, arms and other issues well know. At any rate, I’m back about 95% now thanks to Michael Vig and Amy Barfknecht in PT. One hundred percent is in sight!

Our lifestyles change as we age. When we change jobs, retire, take up new activities or stop some activities we may change the muscle groups we use. Some of those muscle groups are pretty important!

A scalpel or pill can’t fix everything that goes wrong. Sometimes we need to make a little effort ourselves. My experience is that these folks really know what they are doing! We’re fortunate to have them here!

Thanks!