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Tag Archives: knee

I joined a gym!

01 Thursday Nov 2012

Posted by Andy in Training

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

gym, knee, music

As part of my therapy for the stress fracture I’m not allowed to run at the moment but I am allowed to use a stationery bike (and hopefully tomorrow I get the go ahead to use an elliptical) so last week I joined a gym as I don’t have a bike or elliptical at home. Planet Fitness were doing a good $10 signup and no minimum term and $10 a month which seems pretty good – the only downside is that they don’t have a pool, but to join a gym with a pool would cost an extra $80 a year so I opted out for that at the moment.
Anyway, I’m currently doing 30 mins of biking and getting about 8 miles on the bike each time I go – increasing every visit which is a good sign. I’m also starting to use the weight machines but that’ a bit intimidating as I have no idea what I’m actually doing or how much weight to use on the machines – but slowly learning.
The gym plays music over the sound system – thankfully it’s not the radio so no ads (especially political ones). The funny thing is that a lot of the songs that they play are 80’s or 90’s that I like but today it seemed that most of the songs they played are also songs that have been mashed up with different songs by the (recently discovered) DJLobsterdust and Wax Audio sites. It’s very weird listening to the songs as they were originally intended as opposed to the mashed up versions.
One of my favourites is Stayin’ Alive in The Wall –

Tomorrow I go back to the doc again – hopefully not to get a ‘carry on doing what you are doing’ speech, lasting all of 2 minutes and costing $70 but get the go ahead to start using the elliptical. My knee still occasionally hurts though (although strangely enough they both hurt – not just the one with the stress fracture) so we’ll see what he says.
This week was also the anniversary of my first race, the Tyler Burchett 5k run – October 29th 2011 seems such a long time ago. Although it was “only” a 5k – it was the goal that kept me motivated to run. It was also a charity race for a friend so had a special meaning to it too. I was originally intending to do something special to mark the anniversary but totally forgot until the day after – oops!

Underarm crutches are painful and a new gadget – Bone Stimulator.

22 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by Andy in Injuries

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

BoneStim, crutches, exogen, fracture, health, insurance, knee

Two weeks ago I saw my potential surgeon / specialist for a consult after getting an MRI and the combination of the MRI and xray images show that I have a stress fracture at the end of my femur. As I get confused with all the funky bone names, here is a helpful picture. You can also see the meniscus that I had repaired in December last year.

 

 

 

Due to the fracture he wants me on crutches for a while and to have a bone stimulator machine run to improve the bone growth. I’m also scheduled for followup appointments every 2 weeks.

Fortunately I still had the crutches from the Meniscus surgery last year, so for the past two weeks I’ve been using those and as a result my underarms and sides are getting really sore from the constant rubbing as I move around. So I’m really living the high life today and got some forearm crutches on ebay today. When I asked about these crutches the doctors assistant didn’t know what they were called, looked them up on her iphone and then got a prescription written for me but was not able to tell me where to get them from and warned that my insurance wouldn’t pay for them. So based on that, it seemed a lot easier to just get them from ebay. These are the same type of crutch that I had in the UK when I had my cancer surgery on my left leg and they were much better – I have no idea what I did with the UK ones although I think we gave them back to the hospital as they are just loaned to you rather than given to you. In the meantime it is strange that I’m getting excited about receiving crutches in the mail 😉

Last Thursday I also had an appointment to get my bone stim machine. It’s an Exogen Ultrasonic Bone Healing System as shown below (image from Exogen’s website)  and if it’s as good as they say it is, I’m hoping to have the stress fracture showing significant signs of healing (or complete) within 2-4 weeks.

It comes with a bean bag weighted strap that rests over the knee (kind of like a gps mount for the car dashboard) and the transducer fits in a hole in the strap and it then sends the ultrasonic waves down to the bone.

I’ve used it for two days so far, so it is too early to tell any difference but the process is very easy. Just lube up the transducer with a gob of goo, push the button and then fight Frankie off the knee. (He’s actually been pretty good and prefers sitting higher up on the leg anyway). You don’t feel it doing anything, just have to sit still for 20 minutes and then there is a ding from the timer, wipe off the goo and pack it up for the following day.  Apparently it stimulates the bone cells to repair for 30 hrs after use so just needs using once a day.

Unfortunately the machine is expensive and I’m waiting to hear about payment methods for it – I’ve not reached my deductible yet so theres a potential that I may have to pay for the whole thing up front but there’s a possibility I could get a better deal from their patient advocate department, so here’s hoping.  Having said that, the cost of physical therapy and Doctor visits means I’ll be hitting the deductible total pretty soon anyway at which point it won’t really matter but it’s still an expense.  But, once I’m done, if anyone wants to rent the equipment for $200 then let me know 😉

Also Wednesday was talk like a pirate day – I’ve perfected my peg leg impression but did get some funny looks from my coworkers when I spoke a few pirate phrases (although my pirate accent sounds a lot like my Devon farmer with a tractor impression).

Needless to say from all of the above I won’t be running for a while unless I’m crazy enough to do what this guy does….

This time it’s the right knee.

09 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Andy in Runcap

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Tags

knee, pain

After a great race last week I ran just under 3 on Sunday as a recovery and then 7 on Monday, bringing my longest streak to 3 days – we all have to start somewhere right?

However the rest of the week I’ve been resting as my knee has been “tweaky” and hurts a little bit. Not enough to really bother me, but enough that I don’t want to risk making it worse. The annoying thing is the weather was great on Saturday and Sunday but I didn’t want to risk it – although it looked like a great day for running. Mind you, there weren’t many people out on Sunday afternoon – probably sleeping off the Easter Ham’s.

Next race is under 2 weeks away and the half marathon in 25 days – yikes!

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