Hey, Horace?
-
It's doing well George, thanks for asking. The stiffness is not only in the thumb but also in the wrist, which surprised me. I'm doing my exercises and will have my one month post-op appt with the surgeon on Tuesday. PT is a huge time sink but they mean well and they do help. It hurts taking half a day twice a week to go there though.
Education is extremely important.
-
@Horace thanks for the update.
As I mentioned elsewhere, I seem to have developed a trigger finger in my middle finger of my left hand. Seeing a hand guy a week from Monday. It's not limiting, but it hurts, every now and then, esp when I try to play piano.
As to physical therapy, I was always a big skeptic. About 18 months ago, I developed symptoms of a C6-7 radiculopathy. I saw a neurosurgeon who assured me that 90% of his patients with this problem don't need surgery and get better with PT. Despite my skepticism, I agreed to try. Got better within a month, and I'm symptom free on that side, more than 18 months hence.
A good therapist is a Godsend. Hopefully yours can do the magic as well.
-
I'm not familiar with PT meant to be a replacement for surgery. I have experienced PT for three tendon repair surgeries: my quadricep tendon, and two attempts to repair my thumb tendon. Conceptually these are pretty simple surgeries, not to take anything away from what I'm sure are excruciating details. The PT I had for my quad tendon repair was utterly useless and I abandoned it after a couple times there. The presentation has always sniffed to me of pseudo science. The quad tendon PT regimen could be explained in a few sentences and the patient sent home to do it. This thumb tendon is more complicated, but it boils down to "wait for the body to heal the repair, then move everything around as much as possible so the scar tissue etc doesn't fuse the moving parts into place". Then twice a week seems arbitrary too. I have no doubt that the revenue model factors into that frequency. The only thing I ever truly needed to be there for was to fashion my splint. I just roll my eyes (figuratively) when they put a warm towel over my hand to start things off, then after five minutes have me swish my hand around in cold water for another five minutes. That's the sort of stuff that I know is just voodoo black magic and a total waste of my time.
-
@Horace glad it seems to be progressing in the right direction
-
PT works, but most of the time you can do a lot of the stuff at home, not needing as many visits.
Because of reimbursement, PT has become more lucrative in my lifetime. Back when I was a younker, you needed a gpa in the low to mid 3's to get into school. When you graduated, you made money just a smidgen above a first year RN. As you built your business, you did better.
Now, your grades are just short of the guys getting into med school and the first year salary is almost $70k. A good business guy can start his own business, hire some certified PTA's and run satellite clinics just like a single family practice guy overseeing nurse practitioners. Doing that, you can make pretty darn good money.
Always remember, Operation Valkyrie was an act of sedition.
Warning: I post things that interest me. Read and comment at your own discretion. -
@Jolly said in Hey, Horace?:
PT works, but most of the time you can do a lot of the stuff at home, not needing as many visits.
I agree that PT works, in fact it's indispensable, if taken for what it is. Again, I have limited and focused experience, but PT for a quad tendon boils down to waiting for the repair to heal, so the connection is strong, then flexing and extending the joint as much as possible to regain flexibility. Like duh. That is the PT for a quad tendon injury. They will hand wave lots of stuff at the PT office, but the joint only moves two ways, flexing and extending. So what exactly are you going to have to do, if you want to regain that functionality? The body is doing the work of healing. The surgery does the work of making the connection that the body will heal to. The patient does the work of waiting till it's safe to move, then moving as much as is safe. The PT office does the work of hand waving huge complexity to the whole process and taking up an enormous amount of time from the patient, and a decent amount of money from the insurance company. Yes, they also do some basic education and hand holding (so to speak) through the process. But no, I don't want to spend the first 5 minutes of my appointment waiting in the waiting room, then the next 15 with a hot towel wrapped around my hand and then swishing my hand through their ice water. A process so useless they never even bother asking you to do it at home. I don't want to do that when I fit this into my own schedule. Waking up early 2 days per week, driving to the office, driving back. I would hope that it was obviously worth my while.
