Day 1 of Physical Therapy...

Today was my first day of Physical Therapy! It wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. When I got there, the doctor came and examined my ankle. He than told me that my ankle is SUPER tight and he was going to "earn his money" by working with me. Haha.

Because my ankle is so tight from not walking for two months, he had my sit with my foot in a whirlpool for 15 minutes. It actually felt quite nice. The water is the perfect temperature. Basically there is a jet that moves your ankle around.

After the whirlpool, they had me sit on a table and they hooked up an electroshock thing to my foot. This wasn't too fun. Although I was scared at first, it didn't hurt as much as I thought it would. The purpose of this was to loosen up/relax my ankle. I was hooked up to that for about 15 minutes.

Once that was complete, he demonstrated the exorcises he wants me to do as much as I can. They are as follows:

• Put a soup can or water bottle under the arch of your foot. Practice rolling it back and forth (pointing and flexing). When you go forward, you want to try and touch the ground with your toes. When you go backwards, you focus on touching your heel to the ground.
• To give you an idea of how tight my ankle is, I can barley touch with my toes and when I roll backwards, it doesn't even look like I'm trying to touch the floor with my heel but I totally am!
• Put a golf ball under the arch of your foot. Practice pointing and flexing as well as rolling it side to side. This will help break up the scar tissue that has built up and get my range of motion back.
• With a stretchy band or towel practice pointing and flexing. The band should be placed around the top of your foot, just under the toes. Also practice rotating the ankle. Make sure you are moving your ankle and not your leg. (I struggled with that)
• Put varies size marbles on the floor and practice picking them up with your toes and gently dropping them into a small, paper cup.

Other things I can do include stationary biking and swimming. Although when I go swimming, he wants me to wear a aquatic shoe. He said that if I failed to do so, it wouldn't be long until my arch no longer existed. He also said that my days of walking around barefoot are over :( !!!! I'm not even allowed to wear flippy floppys! :( :( :(

Overall, I think that this will help me out greatly! Since I've been walking around without my beloved boot, I've noticed that it is hard to walk because I can barely point and flex my foot. I only wish I had been able to start therapy sooner or known some of these exercises to do at home. While spelling the ABC's was a good stretch, for me it was really hard to control and it didn't really look like it was working. I go back tomorrow and am interested to see what I will be doing.

xoxo

Megs