Daily Archives: October 11, 2012

TENS Unit

The TENS Unit is a piece of equipment that sends electrical signals to muscles and ligaments in an effort to stimulate them to move properly again.  This part of physical therapy was interesting because they put electrode patches on 4 spots in the area that the signals need to treat and then slowly they increase the strength of the wave being sent to those spots.  Once you initially feel it they tell you to continue until the signal is strong but not painful.  The signal feels something like when your foot falls asleep…tingling in the area where the patches are placed. 

For the first few visits, it was pretty simple.  13 minutes of pulsing signals to assist in nerve repair and ligament extension.  It didn’t hurt, just made my foot tingle.  Actually, after the session was completed my foot felt better for a while.

Then it happened.  Several visits into therapy I found my foot didn’t feel the pulses as well as it had in previous visits.  Hmmm I thought, were the leads in the wrong place?  Had they come off?   Did the machine just quit working?  The timer was set for 15 minutes and the tech left me to listen to my ipod.  About 3 minutes into the process the machine started beeping and didn’t stop.  As I looked over I noted an error message on the machine “circuit overload” appeared.  I called to the tech who came back in, reset the machine and left once again.  This time it gave me a “circuit overload charge too high” message.  As the tech came in once again she noted the message this time and said “did you feel anything this time? Did it hurt?” All I felt was a mild pulse of the machine until it stopped working.  She explained that I had shorted the machine out apparently with too much voltage going into my foot!  Hmmm was that why my foot was twitching uncontrollably?  Was that why my toes were curled partially? Was that why my foot was tingling but I couldn’t feel it when I touched the floor with it?

They switched machines and finished the session….now it was time to have the doctor do his part of the therapy.  If only I could feel my foot!

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Physical Therapy

Do you know why it’s called physical therapy?  Because you need therapy to have the physical portion of the treatment done!  Well, maybe not quite that bad, but seriously, it’s supposed to make you feel better….to get there you have to feel the burn!!! (or so I’ve heard)   By any stretch of the imagination, the process is strenuous as you regain whatever you have lost in mobility, strength and balance from surgery.

Physical therapy was the next step aiding in recovery after my foot surgery.  The Doctor and staff there are a team of professionals whose job it is to make joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments move again after both being repaired in surgery and being immobilized for an extended period of time post-op.  These professionals teach you how to use the parts that aren’t working and rebuild their potential making them functional again.  Considering my foot had been immobilized for 11 weeks prior to starting physical therapy and I came in on crutches with a pneumatic boot on it, I was under no illusion this was going to be easy.

My first day there was a mixture of consultation, a plan being developed and an initial session to determine how much mobility I had.  They took a look at my foot, noting the 5 incision sites, swelling and immobility and after setting the plan in motion, we got started.  How much mobility did I have?  Not much!  My foot moved about five degrees that day and my toes were stuck in a straight out position. 

It was kind of like an out of body experience as I watched my toes not respond to my “come on bend” command.  Were those my toes?  What right did they have to remain immobile when I had asked nicely?  I mean really, hadn’t I followed the Doctor’s orders to the letter?  Shouldn’t I be able to move something by now?  Maybe my brain wasn’t sending the right message or maybe I didn’t have control of my foot any longer.  Clearly the toes weren’t planning on doing anything but twitch painfully and not bend at all.  The foot, that was a whole other story…so they brought out what I’ll save for the next discussion…..the TENS unit and muscle stimulator!

Copyright for all content belongs to Overcome By Events (OBE)