Physical therapy, damn it!

Just Monday I started physical therapy. I didn”t plan it. I suppose one never plans it. The VA is paying for my therapy through its Veterans Choice program which allows veterans, in certain cases, to receive non-Veterans Affairs providers. In most instances the program might allow vets to be seen where VA facilities are too great a distance. In my case, the therapy was set up here because it would cause too much of challenge physically and professionally to attend physical therapy several times a week some 85 miles away in Houston.

I think this is maybe the fifth time I have had physical therapy. I’ve had it mostly for my cervical disc problems. Last year I had therapy for a month after arthroscopic surgery to repair a meniscus tear in my knee.

I have to say that I have never had successful physical therapy. It may make me feel better as I walk out the door or maybe for an hour or so. In my case over the first two visits so far, I have felt much worse than I originally felt. I am receiving treatment for my neck pain after two neck surgeries over the past 20 years. I also am getting treatment for a back pain that may or may not be caused by an inflammation of a spinal membrane called arachnoiditis. And as I have to repeatedly say, “No, it isn’t something caused by a spider bite.”

A physical therapist who, did something or other to me yesterday, said a muscle in my back is causing my problem. That may be but that is now three diagnoses for my lower back pain and the first by a non-doctor who is forbidden by law to diagnose medical conditions.

I had a visit with my podiatrist today at the Houston VA, some four months after I had hammertoe surgery. All is well there at least. I told Doc that I was a reluctant patient in physical therapy. He told me to give it a shot. That is what I am doing.

But as I told my DPM, I have to weigh the pain I have from physical therapy with the pain I have been having in my neck and back. Right now, the pain increase I have from physical therapy is outweighing the original pain. That cannot go on for too long, no matter how generously I am being treated by the VA.

Oh, if you don’t see my writing here very much in the next few weeks, it will be due to someone deciding to “improve” my health and well-being.