Most of you know I have bad knees. A few years back the doctor said I was bone on bone and could have them replaced any time I wanted. I didn’t think they felt that bad so I put it off. Earlier this year Karen’s sister Sue visited and told me about the knee shots she gets. You will remember from an earlier blog that I had a series of Synvisc injections, the better to ready my knees for the abuse that was about to come on our visit to France. As part of that I had more xrays and the doctor again said I could have the knee replacement if I wanted. He didn’t seem to think that the injections would do all that much good. Perhaps they didn’t but I got through things so maybe they helped some.
A little after the time I had the injections I saw an ad in the newspaper. The University of Iowa Hospitals was looking for volunteers who wouldn’t mind participating in a knee arthritis study. I figured what could it hurt and maybe it would do me some good. I contacted them and was preliminarily qualified to participate, but I told them I was going to France and would they still be doing it after I returned. They said that would be ok and to give them a call when I got back. I did that a couple of weeks ago.
When I called, they asked me a series of questions and said I was a potential candidate but that I had to come down and have a series of physical tests. This amounted to walking briskly for 400 meters, climbing a couple of flights of stairs, standing up and sitting down from a chair (without fainting, I suppose), and balancing with my feet together, shuffled a little, and one in front of the other. Passed! With flying colors. I was in.
We arranged that my “therapy” would be on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8:00 in the morning. The first session I had an ultrasount on my thigh. The technician had me lay on an examination table and wiggled my leg while he located my greater trocanter (the point where the top of my femur sticks out the farthest) and the bottom of my femur, which also probably has some sort of fancy name but I can’t remember it. He did this for both legs. Below is a copy of the ultra sound…
He repeated this procedure on the second visit too. After the first ultrasound I went back to the “therapy” pool and put myself in the able hands of my trainer, Jessica.
She has the uncanny ability to chit-chat with you while you are doing your exercises and still be able to see if you are not doing things properly and more important, to keep complete track of how many repetitions you have done. I try to keep track too, but if I start spinning some yarn, I can no longer count and I have to say, “Now how many have I done?”
The exercises themselves are pretty straightforward. I think there are about 10. We do three sets of each exercise with ten repetitions in each set. At first we only did one set because of the time lost to the ultrasounds, but as we went along we increased the number of sets and now I am up to the full three.
Exercises include stepping up a step briskly, one foot and then the other, and then stepping down slowly. After ten, leading with the right foot, we follow with ten leading with the left. That’s one set. We also step down the steps in a similar manner, exercize 2. Leg abductions and leg adductions. These are sort of like doing the Freddy half way. Whipping the leg out to the side briskly and returning slowly (Ab?) and moving the leg out to the side slowly and whipping it in briskly (Ad?). We also raise up on our toes quickly and down slowly and raise our toes briskly and down slowly. There are several other exercises that escape me at the moment. In between each group of exercises I walk forward and backward for the 15 foot length of the pool to allow a little relaxation time. After each set of exercises, Jessica asks me what my perceived level of exertion is. I have to rate it on a 6 to 20 point scale with 6 being no noticable effort and 20 being so exhausting I can’t go on. Why 6 to 20? Go figure. So far I have mostly 7 ratings because I do notice that I have been doing something. Once, I rated the effort an 8.
Last Thursday I was watching my granddaughter Rachel and thought she might find going to class with me interesting. I had her take my picture.
I’m half done with the study as of last Thursday. Three weeks to go, then a follow-up six weeks after that.
This might be a dumb question, but what’s the goal of the study? Sounds like a pretty good way to get a free workout. 🙂
Do your knees feel any better or is the study to determine how far you can go b4 the knee replacement! Sorry Butchie, I hope it helps.
These sound very much like the exercises I do in the therapy pool at my health club. I am assuming the goal is to build up the muscles around the knee to hold it more stable and give you longer life until shot in cartilage is invented. I will say that when I did the classes 2X a week for a year my legs were in pretty good shape. I have not been working out as often and I notice a big difference in my knees. Good luck with this.
Boy, anything that helps those poor knees out is a good idea on my end! After being scoped, mine is better but that’s the best I can say. Plus, those doctors are READY TO CUT!!!! I don’t think that it’s all driven by money but I think that there is an element of “craft” in their motives.
None of the comments above are very encouraging. I guess when our knees go, they go. Bummer for all of us!
But I like Rachel’s photo of her grampa!