6 ms·

At the time Covid lockdown started, my entire foot had become inflamed, and I couldn’t walk on it. It’s happened before, doctors, physiotherapists and immune s

by dade_ 5y ago

At the time Covid lockdown started, my entire foot had become inflamed, and I couldn’t walk on it. It’s happened before, doctors, physiotherapists and immune specialists couldn’t find a disease or condition to blame it on. They could only offer pain killers and anti-inflammatory meds. It passed, as it has before. One thought was overuse, or some reinjury from the past. I happened to find a personal trainer that was educated by osteopaths and the last year with him has been shocking. In my mind, I didn’t have any pain issues, though some areas were stiff, getting things from lower cabinets was becoming a chore, and the end of the day at work the back of my head and neck would get stiff. A cocktail or beer could solve the latter. It has been over a year of discoveries. It turns out, muscles all over my body were very tight, for whatever reason, many major movements were no longer using the major muscle, but instead the brain had recruited minor muscles for the movement - perhaps a compensation for a past injury. I’ve learned that I have psoas muscles, and how to use them (though that journey continues) and that pinching feeling in my hip no longer happens when I am sitting. I was already aware that so many things happen in our bodies that we aren’t conscious of, but the depth of it now astounds me. First, I did have pain and problems, but I had somehow shut off awareness. Second, all of those problems were being still having the effect of making me feel tired and worn down. Third, all of these compensatory movements that the brain does all by itself were probably great for simple survival because they allow us to keep going even though the best way to move is lost. Thing is, the brain doesn’t seem to have an automatic ‘service restoration to primary’. We have to do it consciously, intentionally, and with practice. Pain is in the mind. There can be pain where there is no physical problem, and there can be no pain where there is a serious problem, but there can also be pain because we have lost awareness of our body and so pain manifests all over the place. There is an idea that the mind and body are separate, this is wrong and the idea needs to be burned with fire. Until then, people will continue fighting with these phantoms. We can group pain together, slice it apart, but I think that in many cases there isn’t much more to learn from pain, except that in many cases it is a symptom of a body trying to communicate to a mind that stopped paying attention.

elric 5y ago
It's fascinating, isn't it? It's also frustrating. You see a doctor because something hurts, they look at the something -- often in isolation -- and if they can't figure it out, you're pretty much on your own. I had constant foot pain in one foot for nearly a year. Doctors told me to rest. I walk a lot, and walking less wasn't really an option. Saw an osteopath, with more than a healthy dose of skepticism. They gave me exercises which were both baffling and ridiculous, which basically taught me how to use my big toes, then graduated to strengthening those muscles. At some point during this process, the pain went away, and it hasn't come back. Why couldn't my doctor identify this apparent muscle weakness in my foot? I don't know. But I'm glad the osteopath did.
- bishoprook2 5y ago
  >You see a doctor because something hurts, they look at the something -- often in isolation -- and if they can't figure it out, you're pretty much on your own. A quick Old Man(tm) rant. Concerning healthcare, you have to be your own project manager. They're a lot better at curing things they can see (ie. surgery), GPs have crude tools for analysis and mostly serve as gatekeepers to specialists and pharmacists. Also, GPs work mostly from flow charts and you are just one of 1000 patients they see that year. Communications between hospital departments, independent contractors like specialists or ER personnel, GPs, etc. are poor. Continuously audit procedures and drug regimes. Sci-Hub is your friend but don't overestimate the value of studies.
  - foepys 5y ago
    I was told recently that there is already change happening. Medical students are being told that they need to work with the patient, not on them. Nobody knows their symptoms and illness better than the patient themselves. A doctor looks at them for 5 minutes, the patient lives with them so not including the patient in the diagnostic process is like working with a blindfold on.
    - arpa 5y ago
      there are also ideas about patient empowerment (since last century). Medical community is not the most flexible, but we'll get there.
theNJR 5y ago
How did you find your personal trainer? I have a chronic neck pinch, coming from a weak lower trap (I think), that I’d love to fix. I make it worse multiple times a year from lifting and have to take at least a week off the gym. I bet I am doing what you did with using the wrong muscle.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  I’d suggest starting with a physical therapist. They are trained to look at you whole body and how it moves and suggest exercises to address issues. A good trainer might have this kind of outlook and training but most don’t.
  - theNJR 5y ago
    Arnold’s best friend, Franco Columbo, was my body worker. He’d just look at me and know what I was doing wrong. He was so amazing. And sadly died way too young from a boating accident. I’ll see if I can find a PT who can replicate.
- dade_ 5y ago
  I was stuck on my couch and fed up so I kept searching the web until I found someone that could help. He had an amazing website which is very unusual for small businesses. It described an experience of having our fitness achievements and habits disrupted by injury. The frustrations of traditional physio, but also the importance of integrating training to accelerate healing instead of avoiding the area. It resonated with me, I called him and learned more. The part I like the most is that I have a bunch of solutions for my problems. I don't need to call him, he taught me what I need to do.
meroes 5y ago
I've had a similar experience in Covid with muscle tightness. It's unbelievable how much our bodies compensate. It started with a muscle injury to my upper back. Well to heal it, unbeknownst to my conscious awareness, almost an entire half of my body tightened to allow that one area to heal. Like you said it's as if whole sections of my muscles were numb as well, and only after repeated stretching did I "activate" those dormant areas. And it took being in a very calm and relaxed state (not trivial to do with tightness and/or pain) to "sense" these areas and being stretching them out. Turns out I had to find stretches for all the way down to my big toe to the top of my head and everything in between. The lessons of body to mind are overflowing suffice to say.
wpietri 5y ago
This definitely resonates for me. Like many developers, I grew up thinking of my body more as a tedious, irritating burden; the whole brain-in-a-jar/live-in-the-matrix thing seemed kinda appealing. So I was proud of how long I could spend coding or reading and ignoring my body. That gave me a lot of bad habits. Then I made a friend who's a yoga teacher. Out of curiosity I started attending some of her classes. In her yoga tradition, the root purpose of yoga is to free the mind for meditation. That really resonated for me. Instead of ignoring my body, I could work with it to do better at the things that mattered to me. In the years since, I've come to think of my previous relationship to my body as like somebody running a large software system with poor instrumentation and observability. Somebody who ignored monitoring alerts until there was downtime. In that framing, I could see it as obviously the wrong approach. That instead I needed to pay attention, take care of maintenance, debug problems, and generally to understand and improve the system over time. Especially as I get older, it really pays off. My only regret is not starting sooner.
- dade_ 5y ago
  I was reading up on improving my rock climbing skills / movement, and a book about better movement was directly mentioned. Looking back, it was what started me down this journey. Being stuck on the couch in searing pain finally pushed me to make the investment of time and money. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22847203-a-guide-to-better-movement https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22847203-a-guide-to-bett...
maxerickson 5y ago
Was CRPS mentioned as a possibility?
- dade_ 5y ago
  No, and thank you for the suggestion. I've never heard of it, but I had more than half of the symptoms listed on the Mayo clinic website. It exactly describes my experience and also the words of my many baffled practitioners. It was a response completely out of line to any possible injury. Pure agony. Doesn't look like there are cut and dry answers, but I'll look into it further. Thanks again.
fidesomnes 5y ago
You would benefit from frequent and deep hip flexor stretching. Look at what they do in Thai massage and or kickboxing warm ups and you will how to develop the full range of motion for the hip. I am convinced most men under appreciate this to our own detriment. After I started doing deep stretching and functional exercise movements for awhile my back, neck, and hips would crack on their own and it really loosens up the whole body.
void_mint 5y ago
> Pain is in the mind. There can be pain where there is no physical problem, and there can be no pain where there is a serious problem My left shoulder was mostly unusable after a subaccromial decompression surgery that was meant to make the shoulder less-unusable. Doctors told me to see PT, PT had me do the same waste-of-time banded pull aparts and subscap work. Imaging suggested there wasn't a structural problem and PT never really listened to anything I had to say. So, as do most, I stopped going. Eventually I got tired of being immobilized and I just started doing what I wanted to do. I lifted weights and just clenched my teeth during the periods of extreme pain during various movements. Lo and behold, the issue was mostly related to lots of muscles being very weak from the changes in movement patterns to accommodate the extreme pain. None of the PTs allowed me to do any movements other than rotator cuff band work. Bench pressing for 2 weeks had me largely out of pain. The state of doctors/phsyiotherapists/physical therapy is a joke. At this point I would consult a bullshit crossfit box owner before going to a doctor for movement deficiencies.
- dade_ 5y ago
  My rotator cuff was also on the list of problems. We used the bands, but also a squash ball and rolled out the 4 muscles. Lie down on it with your arm pointing upward for the rear one. On your side under your arm pit for lower, between your pec and shoulder for the front and think of a bull with the ball between your shoulder and the wall. It is one of my favourites because shoulder pain is so annoying to reach, and all it took was a simple ball. Lots of sites on the Internet have better detail on the steps, but releasing tight muscles can work wonders.
  - void_mint 5y ago
    Are you my PT? My rotator cuff wasn’t related to my problems, it’s just the only thing PTs focus on when you come in with shoulder pain.
justicezyx 5y ago
That's when traditional medicine like traditional Chinese medicine come to be helpful. Although traditional Chinese medicine lacks preciseness and reasoning of the modern medicine, they possess a truly whole body methodology of treating ailment and diseases. It's under major criticism nowadays, although mostly for the wrong reasons. Because like so many once beloved and respected professions, they become the unfortunate prey of the capitalism frenzy and being used as the tool for profit. Practitioners now use the inherent fuzziness to hide their ignorance. Putting the ineffectiveness of their treatment on some seemingly plausible "theory" that was never proclaimed by their ancient predecessor. Even worse, the herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine are now toxicated by the industrial wastes grow into the soil. Merchants are now more than happy to adopt modern agriculture techniques to improve their quantity and cases nothing about the effectiveness. Alas, sadness is now upon the ones who truly see and feel the greatness of the traditional Chinese medicine.
agumonkey 5y ago
it's partly why I think physical exercise and education should be mandatory with a focus on higher performance floor and well being. It's like your car.. if one part fails the system will compensate globally by absorbing the issue in every possible way but it leads to what you had. Tiny issues spread everywhere. When you restore balance your life gets so much easier.

by dade_ 5y ago

elric 5y ago

It's fascinating, isn't it? It's also frustrating. You see a doctor because something hurts, they look at the something -- often in isolation -- and if they can't figure it out, you're pretty much on your own. I had constant foot pain in one foot for nearly a year. Doctors told me to rest. I walk a lot, and walking less wasn't really an option. Saw an osteopath, with more than a healthy dose of skepticism. They gave me exercises which were both baffling and ridiculous, which basically taught me how to use my big toes, then graduated to strengthening those muscles. At some point during this process, the pain went away, and it hasn't come back. Why couldn't my doctor identify this apparent muscle weakness in my foot? I don't know. But I'm glad the osteopath did.

bishoprook2 5y ago
>You see a doctor because something hurts, they look at the something -- often in isolation -- and if they can't figure it out, you're pretty much on your own. A quick Old Man(tm) rant. Concerning healthcare, you have to be your own project manager. They're a lot better at curing things they can see (ie. surgery), GPs have crude tools for analysis and mostly serve as gatekeepers to specialists and pharmacists. Also, GPs work mostly from flow charts and you are just one of 1000 patients they see that year. Communications between hospital departments, independent contractors like specialists or ER personnel, GPs, etc. are poor. Continuously audit procedures and drug regimes. Sci-Hub is your friend but don't overestimate the value of studies.
- foepys 5y ago
  I was told recently that there is already change happening. Medical students are being told that they need to work with the patient, not on them. Nobody knows their symptoms and illness better than the patient themselves. A doctor looks at them for 5 minutes, the patient lives with them so not including the patient in the diagnostic process is like working with a blindfold on.
  - arpa 5y ago
    there are also ideas about patient empowerment (since last century). Medical community is not the most flexible, but we'll get there.

theNJR 5y ago

How did you find your personal trainer? I have a chronic neck pinch, coming from a weak lower trap (I think), that I’d love to fix. I make it worse multiple times a year from lifting and have to take at least a week off the gym. I bet I am doing what you did with using the wrong muscle.

Tagbert 5y ago
I’d suggest starting with a physical therapist. They are trained to look at you whole body and how it moves and suggest exercises to address issues. A good trainer might have this kind of outlook and training but most don’t.
- theNJR 5y ago
  Arnold’s best friend, Franco Columbo, was my body worker. He’d just look at me and know what I was doing wrong. He was so amazing. And sadly died way too young from a boating accident. I’ll see if I can find a PT who can replicate.
dade_ 5y ago
I was stuck on my couch and fed up so I kept searching the web until I found someone that could help. He had an amazing website which is very unusual for small businesses. It described an experience of having our fitness achievements and habits disrupted by injury. The frustrations of traditional physio, but also the importance of integrating training to accelerate healing instead of avoiding the area. It resonated with me, I called him and learned more. The part I like the most is that I have a bunch of solutions for my problems. I don't need to call him, he taught me what I need to do.

meroes 5y ago

I've had a similar experience in Covid with muscle tightness. It's unbelievable how much our bodies compensate. It started with a muscle injury to my upper back. Well to heal it, unbeknownst to my conscious awareness, almost an entire half of my body tightened to allow that one area to heal. Like you said it's as if whole sections of my muscles were numb as well, and only after repeated stretching did I "activate" those dormant areas. And it took being in a very calm and relaxed state (not trivial to do with tightness and/or pain) to "sense" these areas and being stretching them out. Turns out I had to find stretches for all the way down to my big toe to the top of my head and everything in between. The lessons of body to mind are overflowing suffice to say.

wpietri 5y ago

This definitely resonates for me. Like many developers, I grew up thinking of my body more as a tedious, irritating burden; the whole brain-in-a-jar/live-in-the-matrix thing seemed kinda appealing. So I was proud of how long I could spend coding or reading and ignoring my body. That gave me a lot of bad habits. Then I made a friend who's a yoga teacher. Out of curiosity I started attending some of her classes. In her yoga tradition, the root purpose of yoga is to free the mind for meditation. That really resonated for me. Instead of ignoring my body, I could work with it to do better at the things that mattered to me. In the years since, I've come to think of my previous relationship to my body as like somebody running a large software system with poor instrumentation and observability. Somebody who ignored monitoring alerts until there was downtime. In that framing, I could see it as obviously the wrong approach. That instead I needed to pay attention, take care of maintenance, debug problems, and generally to understand and improve the system over time. Especially as I get older, it really pays off. My only regret is not starting sooner.

dade_ 5y ago
I was reading up on improving my rock climbing skills / movement, and a book about better movement was directly mentioned. Looking back, it was what started me down this journey. Being stuck on the couch in searing pain finally pushed me to make the investment of time and money. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22847203-a-guide-to-better-movement https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22847203-a-guide-to-bett...

maxerickson 5y ago

Was CRPS mentioned as a possibility?

dade_ 5y ago
No, and thank you for the suggestion. I've never heard of it, but I had more than half of the symptoms listed on the Mayo clinic website. It exactly describes my experience and also the words of my many baffled practitioners. It was a response completely out of line to any possible injury. Pure agony. Doesn't look like there are cut and dry answers, but I'll look into it further. Thanks again.

fidesomnes 5y ago

You would benefit from frequent and deep hip flexor stretching. Look at what they do in Thai massage and or kickboxing warm ups and you will how to develop the full range of motion for the hip. I am convinced most men under appreciate this to our own detriment. After I started doing deep stretching and functional exercise movements for awhile my back, neck, and hips would crack on their own and it really loosens up the whole body.

void_mint 5y ago

> Pain is in the mind. There can be pain where there is no physical problem, and there can be no pain where there is a serious problem My left shoulder was mostly unusable after a subaccromial decompression surgery that was meant to make the shoulder less-unusable. Doctors told me to see PT, PT had me do the same waste-of-time banded pull aparts and subscap work. Imaging suggested there wasn't a structural problem and PT never really listened to anything I had to say. So, as do most, I stopped going. Eventually I got tired of being immobilized and I just started doing what I wanted to do. I lifted weights and just clenched my teeth during the periods of extreme pain during various movements. Lo and behold, the issue was mostly related to lots of muscles being very weak from the changes in movement patterns to accommodate the extreme pain. None of the PTs allowed me to do any movements other than rotator cuff band work. Bench pressing for 2 weeks had me largely out of pain. The state of doctors/phsyiotherapists/physical therapy is a joke. At this point I would consult a bullshit crossfit box owner before going to a doctor for movement deficiencies.

dade_ 5y ago
My rotator cuff was also on the list of problems. We used the bands, but also a squash ball and rolled out the 4 muscles. Lie down on it with your arm pointing upward for the rear one. On your side under your arm pit for lower, between your pec and shoulder for the front and think of a bull with the ball between your shoulder and the wall. It is one of my favourites because shoulder pain is so annoying to reach, and all it took was a simple ball. Lots of sites on the Internet have better detail on the steps, but releasing tight muscles can work wonders.
- void_mint 5y ago
  Are you my PT? My rotator cuff wasn’t related to my problems, it’s just the only thing PTs focus on when you come in with shoulder pain.

justicezyx 5y ago

That's when traditional medicine like traditional Chinese medicine come to be helpful. Although traditional Chinese medicine lacks preciseness and reasoning of the modern medicine, they possess a truly whole body methodology of treating ailment and diseases. It's under major criticism nowadays, although mostly for the wrong reasons. Because like so many once beloved and respected professions, they become the unfortunate prey of the capitalism frenzy and being used as the tool for profit. Practitioners now use the inherent fuzziness to hide their ignorance. Putting the ineffectiveness of their treatment on some seemingly plausible "theory" that was never proclaimed by their ancient predecessor. Even worse, the herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine are now toxicated by the industrial wastes grow into the soil. Merchants are now more than happy to adopt modern agriculture techniques to improve their quantity and cases nothing about the effectiveness. Alas, sadness is now upon the ones who truly see and feel the greatness of the traditional Chinese medicine.

agumonkey 5y ago

it's partly why I think physical exercise and education should be mandatory with a focus on higher performance floor and well being. It's like your car.. if one part fails the system will compensate globally by absorbing the issue in every possible way but it leads to what you had. Tiny issues spread everywhere. When you restore balance your life gets so much easier.