Productive Pain?
Physical therapy is not for the faint of heart. It hurts! I learned this years ago while recovering from rotator cuff surgery. On Thursday, one day shy of four weeks since my foot surgery, my physical therapist friend, Melissa, grasped my foot with a vice-like grip and kneaded my muscles and bones and fascia and scar tissue for 45 minutes with force that left me grimacing and struggling not to moan. In a mistaken plea for advice, or perhaps sympathy, I asked if perhaps I should take a couple of Ibuprofen before the next visit, to which she promptly told me, with a distinctly unsympathetic twinkle, to "put your big girl panties on." Direct quote. Hmphhf! Clearly, pain is part of the process, but sympathy is not. I was shocked at the force with which she kneaded my incision line, as if working some really hard, old plasticine clay in an attempt to get it to loosen up. If I didn't trust her so much after years of successfully rehabilitating other body parts, I might have run screaming from the room. Evidently, sustained force is required to break up scar tissue. After 45 minutes of pinching, crushing, squeezing, wiggling, kneading, stretching... I stood up. Walked. And the shocking thing was, my gait was more normal than before. She didn't cause permanent damage, but actually made it better!
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