Saturday, July 17, 2010

Loss of Motion

I tell ya, this week getting back to straight nights has been rough. I long for my nice warm bed and heating pad by the time 3am rolls around, and by the time I actually get home, it's my total focus. Twice this week I nearly missed PT appointments because I came home, cleaned up and got ready (and once, I even got in my pj's and actually into bed) for bed only to remember that I had to go to PT.

Anyway, I went in yesterday and my physical therapist had called out with an emergency and I was seen by another one. She tells me that she is a hand therapist (maybe they pick their specialty like we do at work?), and assesses my range of motion. I thought it odd as I hadn't asked her to do this, and my therapist had just done measurements on my wrist motion earlier this week. Regardless, I was interested to hear what she thought. She thinks I will get back all of my pronation and supination, and I have most of it back now. She said I have about 10 degrees to go on supination. She also told me that my flexion is great, and that she feels like she can push my extension about another 10 degrees and then she hits an "end point". She thinks it will only get minimally better. I'm disappointed to hear this. I mean, I realize my doc said 80-90% is what I could expect to get back over the next 12-18 months, but is that really only 10 more degrees until I am there? I can't force it obviously to be any better than what it is going to be, but I guess I just expected it to be more than she was talking, and not to really be thinking I'd see it so soon. She doesn't think it will inhibit much, she thinks I'll be able to compensate because I will have the full supination and pronation, so I guess if I'm trying to take something positive I will take that, as well as the fact that I get most everything else back fully.

1 comment:

  1. Scott's wrist did continue to get more and more range of motion over the year following his surgery and I think he has pretty much full range of motion. Of course, he started working with it right away and didn't really do that much PT so it could be different for you. Also, they told me when I dislocated my elbow that I wouldn't get full range of motion back, but I actually did. It was really difficult with OT to get the range back...but they were all surprised at how great my range of motion was afterwards. You never know!

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