Trip To The Physiotherapist

I went to the physiotherapist recommended by my GP yesterday.

This was the first time I've ever been to a physiotherapist, so I was quite curious what he could do for me, and what it would be like. Of course, a physiotherapist is still a doctor, so I was expecting some similarities. But its actually quite different. I'm not sure if this is because of the difference between both doctor's personalities, but I found my trip to the physiotherapist extremely enlightening and informative.

First off, the clinic reception was pretty small, but seemed well kept. After checking in with the receptionist, I browsed through the clinic book shelves to check out several "print outs" that stood out among the many magazines and newspapers also laying around. It had several issues that looked pretty interesting, relating to basic stuff on proper physiology in layman's terms, written by the resident physiologist of the clinic. Most of the print outs were enlightening, and also gave indication of the doctor's personality with snippets of humor - which is pretty much a good idea to explain medical conditions compared to pamphlets you're likely to see strewn around general GP clinic (yes, they're informative in uberly layman's terms, but they don't actually say much except in the form of:

X disease causes severe trauma and long term side effects.
The symptoms are <insert your favorite very vague symptom here>.
To prevent this, do Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4....
<insert your medicine advertisement here> will also help in alleviating X.
Ask your doctor for more details.

Whereas, the clinic print outs are more personal, but still informative. It gives an insight to the personality of the writer, but also has more information on the particular topic:


Spine Evolution

One of my wishes for the Year of the Monkey is that all my patients could behave more like monkeys, more on the move and stretching their arms and legs out. I always tell patients to think more of the evolution figures of the human being that we have evolved from almost on all fours to gradually standing up ... that have led to the success of the human race... It has only been over the last century that more and more of us are request to sit at our workplace and at out leisure activities... Perhaps the next figure to be added to our evolution chart is going to be a sitting human being with a slouching/forward head posture, losing our normal 'S' Shape of the spine and gaining a more kyphotic shape of the whole thoracic and lumbar spine. Perhaps the spine may eventually evolve to adopt such alignment as being normal. This evolution process will certainly take many more centuries and millions of herniated dics, sprained intervertebral ligaments, overused/strained back muscles. Until then, I will still encourage patients to maintain their lumbar lordosis...

- Taken from one of the many pamphlets from Hong Kong Orthopaedic Manipulative Physiotherapy Centre, by Luck Li, Manipulative Pysiotherapist, MHKPA MAPA MMPAA B. Phty (Qld Aust.) Grad. Dip. Adv. Manip. Ther. (SA. Aust.)


After a few minutes of waiting at the reception, I met up with the doctor. Basically did the typical stuff, I described all the symptoms I've been having the past weeks, and he wrote them down. Then he asked me to prop up to the bed so he can look at my leg.

NOTE TO READERS: Try to bring short pants when going to a physiotherapist for a leg related problem, because a skirt isn't ideal. I thought that he was merely going to inspect my knee, so I wore a skirt. But instead he needed to check my leg's full range of motion to make a diagnosis. He did provide me with shorts available at the clinic, and assured me that it is clean, but you can't be too certain at times, particularly with less hygienic clinics. This one seemed ok, but next time I'd prefer to bring my own.

Firstly, he asked me to lie on my back. He did a couple of motions with both legs. Then he asked me to lie on my stomach and bent my knee and did some examination. He also took a look at my back (It did hurt, but I'm not quite sure if they are related to the knee injury) and had a quick examination of my spine.

My results? Well, a couple of points:
1. I'm extremely inflexible at the moment: (Or maybe even way before)
(a) I can't stretch my hamstrings as good as most young people
(b) I can't stretch my quadriceps as good as most young people
2. There's an odd creaking and popping noise on my left leg when bent fully while lying down. Its actually scary. The doctor commented that its bad, cause normally only older people have it (well, would you look at that, maybe I'm already a 40 year old woman disguised as a 20+ year old lady?)
3. Lots of problems with my lower back - and still inflexible (he was commenting about spine 1,4,5 on left side with problem, and spine 2,3 on right side. Didn't make much sense, but I still took note of it, just in case)
4. There should be no danger of surgery (from torn ligaments or ACLs, at least) BUT he did mention that there's a damaged condition that could possibly worsen if not treated correctly.

His recommendations?
1. Do some stretching exercises (particularly in the hamstring, quadriceps and back) While doing the hamstrings, massage my knee cap since its currently holding a lot of pressure from my damaged muscles
2. Try to always maintain a good posture (I slouch a lot)
3. Apply some electrotherapy on my knees
4. Come back again within the week :)

He did some extreme stretching on me ... and well, its pretty much extreme. It was funny because he was talking to me while stretching my hamstring muscles, and I was in a state of extreme pain (from the stretching) to the point where I couldn't get a word in.

But my legs did feel good right after that. :)

Been doing the recommended stretches, and confident to say, they do help a lot. I'm walking more stable now compared to three days ago, because back then I couldn't even stand in a stable state for more than 10 minutes while waiting at the bus stop. I had to shift my weight onto my shoulders (sort of like crutching against the railing found on the bus stop line)

I've made my next appointment for this coming saturday, and I'm looking forward to it.