Dunkirk NY – Today began the physical therapy regimen. I am going to a different PT clinic that I did for my left knee, since my former therapist retired and moved to Florida. This is the next major development in rehab, and it will give me something to do for the next month or so.
My initial workup was pretty positive. After almost two weeks of recovery, my right knee is only about 3″ more in circumference than my left, and my range of motion (ROM) is about 10° less. Doing all the icing I’ve been doing has been a help in terms of bringing the swelling down and keeping it under control. My walking gait is almost normal with little sign of limp. So I am starting off in a pretty good place.
I was started off with 10 minutes on a bicycle, which was much different from the first time. A year ago I didn’t get on a bicycle for maybe a month. After that comes a series of leg lifts, quad tightening, heel slides, and so on. The idea is to regain strength in the quads and the muscles around the knee. What’s difficult about these is that they also work the core muscles as well. Once you get into them they are not bad and easy to do. 15 to 30 reps of these things depending on the particular exercise gets it done. I was also surprised by the lack of anything requiring a resistance band. I bought a set anticipating using them, but I did not use them today.
My brother gave me a few more to do, like wall slides, squats, and lunges. I will have to incorporate some of those into my workout over time at home. I get two sessions at the clinic each week, and then work at home. One other difference is that this therapist wants me to do these exercises 2 to 3 times a day. Last time I only did them once a day. I think I will go with two for now, so once in the AM, ice, once in the PM, ice, and then one final icing at night. That should get me up and running fairly quickly.
I realize PT is a short road to recovery, but I am willing to bet that simply normal activity and time will actually do much of the work even if I didn’t do PT. But I have noticed a weight gain of 3.5 lbs, so I do hope that getting the exercises done will result in some weight loss. I rode the bike 2.5 miles today and got my heart rate up to 85, but that is nowhere near enough to burn some decent calories (I think I burned less than 100). I can probably also go for short walks up and down the block as well. So it’s off and…well, not quite running. But we will get there! -twl