PT was not for me

August 2011

After finally deciding it was time to do something about this ankle of mine, I got online and searched for a good sports doctor who knew his way around the ankle.  My search led me to a sports orthopedic surgeon who also happened to be a team physician for the Maryland Terrapins.  Honestly, he had me at sports doctor, but as a UMD alumnus my doctor being a Terp doctor did make me happy.

How do I explain to the doctor what's wrong with my ankle?  You know how when you car is broke, but when you take it to the mechanic you or they can never replicate the problem. Yeah, that's usually how I feel when I walk into a doctors office with pain or some weird symptom.  Overall, I just felt uneasy about my doctors visit. I had all these things floating around in my head. Will I like my doctor, will he dismiss my concerns and if he does maybe what i'm experiencing is not that bad.

Doctors Visit #1
Yay, my doctor seem great.  When he walked in my exam room I instantly felt at ease.  He had a great approach and I could tell he was listening to my concerns and it really seemed as if he cared and not for one minute did he dismiss what I was feeling.  He immediately sent me next door to get an x-ray and yeah of course the results showed nothing out of the ordinary.  Either way, he recommended 6 weeks of Physical Therapy (PT) and he prescribed some anti-inflammatory and muscle relaxers to help with pain.  This was not exactly what I wanted to do, but it was what I knew I needed to do and I was game to do whatever was necessary.

I went to a Physical Therapist recommended by my doctor, and they actually had an office on the first floor of my office building which made getting to 2 appointments a weeks easier to fit into my schedule. 

I'm not going to bore you with the details of my PT, instead I will make it simple, I did PT for 4 weeks and it was helpful at managing my pain but it did not reduce my pain and at times my pain actually increased.  I had a great physical therapist named Kenny who worked hard to reduce my pain and strengthen my ankle.  He used a combination of stability, tens therapy and strengthening exercises in combination with cold and hot treatments.  It was after about 10 sessions that Kenny had a talk with me in which he made the recommendation that we should stop PT until I go back to my doctor.  I wasn't getting better and he didn't feel like PT was helping.  Yup, I agreed with Kenny and in fact I had already made a follow up appointment with my doctor because the pain was getting worse and although I though PT was helpful it just wasn't doing enough.

Back to the doc I go!