Wednesday, February 20, 2008

My First Physical Therapy Appointment

I had my first physical therapy appointment today for the knee. I was diagnosed with patellofemoral stress syndrome, as well as ITB syndrome. Basically, my ITB is so tight that it's pulling my knee out of alignment and causing tightness around the patella. So the friction on the cartillage behind the patella is what has been screaming at me for the last 4 months.

The therapist did a basic evaluation where she checked everything out, had me do strength tests, looked at my (lack of) flexibility, walking, etc. Then she went in for the kill...massaging both IT bands. I may have some scar tissue build-up on the left side and when she was working on that I was pretty much bawling into the pillow. It's been awhile since I've had a good cry, so at least that's out of my system. My appointment was followed up with ultrasound on both sides. And an appointment card for 2-3x/week for the next 5 weeks. Good thing I have a job (and insurance) to pay for all of this...

Here is my post-PT face (I cried all my makeup off -- don't judge):