I see it’s been about 10 months since I’ve placed anything here. At that time, I was still having a hard time walking and having a lot of pain. Eventually, I took my wife’s advice and went to se a doctor. My previous encounter with a doctor was very unsatisfactory: the “knee man” was very pessimistic and gave me a brace to wear. This doctor my wife had seen told me I simply had arthritis, it wouldn’t get any better, but I could get therapy that would improve things. He intimated that knee replacement would not be considered for me since I was walking and they replaced the knees of people who could not tolerate the pain.
He explained to me that medications like Ibuprofen and Aleve decreased inflammation, which is what is wanted, they are not pain killers that simply deaden the nerves. A pharmacist explained to me that all of these, including Tylenol, have a pain killing effect that no one can explain. The main concern I had was I did not want to be numbed; I wanted to know what was going on with my body. The doctor referred me to therapists who saw me about six times and gave me about nine exercises to do every day.
I began that regimen plus 2 Ibuprofen (I switched to Aleve, 1 a day, which the doctor had suggested, about four days ago) and my knees have improved greatly, including much less pain. Today for instance, I put all my picture files 6 2 ft crates plus another several hundred in standing files under the stairs. That necessitated me not only carrying the very heavy crates but scrunching myself up in the tiny space under the stairs and stacking the pictures, something I could not have done a few months ago. I also walk good distances without discomfort.
I’m back to my work outs and within a week got back to where I was before I stopped the w/o. Once I’ve established my old level of performance, another week or so, I’ll switch to the Verstegan core exercise program. It’s demanding and will necessitate laying out the exercises on 3×5 index cards and rehearsing them, but it’s a 12 week program that will bring me to a level from which I can go in several directions, all of them good.
I can mention here that my wife and I will celebrate 49 years of marriage the 13th of June. It’s funny how many people express surprise that our marriage was illegal in AZ when we got engaged and remained illegal in 18 states until four years after our marriage. IOW, had we gone to those states, we could have been arrested, as were the Lovings, an interracial couple in VA whose Supreme Court case declared unconstitutional all such laws. And yet we still have people who want to decide for other people who they can marry and, just like the anti-miscegenationists, they invoke the Bible. Of course. That’s what it’s for.