Hmm I was wondering, i had surgery done about 4 weeks ago, and just now have started to ease back into working out, however one thing is bugging me. I spend around a month and a half in and out of hospitals, as such I wasnt working out, I went for the second time today, and noticed the amount of strength ive lost. I know its trivial to be dissappointed about something like this but nonetheless i am. I benched 185 six times no spot, but before all the health problems i had i was easily doing 205 for six or so reps. My question is, is it back to square 1? Or is it easier to regain strength that you'd already had once?
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Post surgery
- Thread starter YSK
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well its a long story, hospital fucked up, I was suppose to get laproscopy something for gallstones, they ignored my first 11 admittances into the hospital, deeming it not surgery necessary for the meantime, and finally when they did, it took too long and my gallbladder was severely gangrenous and on the brink of bursting, so the had to cut a six inch cut into my upper abdomen, instead of the simpler method which they could have used if they got me surgery earlier, which are 4 tiny 2cm cuts.
start back easy.
couple of things to know:
a) when fascia is cut (as in surgery), it changes fascial lines within the body. This can impact posture, pain patterns and movement.
b) post surgery there is an incredible amount of scar tissue buit up, both visible (on the skin) and deep (below the skin affecting deeper layers of fascia). you may want to look into having a therapist break that scar tissue up to help restore proper soft tissue extensibility.
couple of things to know:
a) when fascia is cut (as in surgery), it changes fascial lines within the body. This can impact posture, pain patterns and movement.
b) post surgery there is an incredible amount of scar tissue buit up, both visible (on the skin) and deep (below the skin affecting deeper layers of fascia). you may want to look into having a therapist break that scar tissue up to help restore proper soft tissue extensibility.
^ I'd definitely do B and get a competent (!) (ART) therapist.
ART is just a modality. It doesn't mean that those who practice it are any more competent than another therapist.
It is based on an old massage principle of pin and stretch. It is effective, but can be invasive and painful.
Look for someone who understands (aside from ART, which is okay):
Neuromuscular Techniques
and
Myofascial Release (direct and indirect.......direct will be great for breaking up the scar tissue at the spot of sugery. indirect will be great for restoring proper fascial lines).
Hmm....I have pressed on the horizontal cut and noticed it is quite hard. Theres really no more pain there. Im interested in this fascia, i read up on it a bit, are there long term repercussions to not doing your recommended stuff Pfunk? If it is necessary how come the doctor didnt mention it, anyways im seeing my surgeon for the first time since he cut me open so maybe ill bring it up.
Yeah i thought about it, but this is Canada after all, surgery time and everything, and I dont think i have a solid enough case. Im 18, dont ahve a lot of money etc. However they did prescribe me various pain killers, and anti inflammatories.
Ditto, good old muscle memory.
Same as you, I got shafted at various hospitals, VGH, RCH, Eagle Ridge, UBC, etc. Actually i live in coquitlam. Bascially my 11+ visits are spread amongst those hospitals with the last 5 being Royal Columbian, so ive been talking to the director of fraser health, and gonna make a case for them to give me treatment to at least minimize my scar. Just went to the surgeon also, told me to rub some vitamin E and thats it :/
I mentioned the stuff Pfunk said, his face seemed to portray that he had never heard of it, and said "no dont do that, jus vitamin E"
I mentioned the stuff Pfunk said, his face seemed to portray that he had never heard of it, and said "no dont do that, jus vitamin E"
Obivously, you can do nothing if you want to (or just rub some vitamin E on it
), but if you want things to be optimal and you want your body functioning 100% again (I know I would), then you want to be proactive.Doctors don't know jack shit about soft tissue. Most of them don't even palpate or touch your tissue when you go in for some sort of sports injury and most of them are fucking clueless about how things work together. Hence the reason modern medicine has so many "specialists." You knee specialist only looks at your knee and whether or not he can operate...he doesn't think to look at the ankle and figure out if there is a problem there that is causing the knee to hurt. Or look at the hip, etc.....Why do you think so many surgeries fail and people are in WORSE pain after they have the surgery than they ever were. We get them in our clinic all the time! Ofcourse, the doctor doesn't know why they hurt still so they pawn them off.
The same is true in your case. Your doctor is not going to know about scar maintenance and how to appropraitely take care of the soft tissue. He know....pain meds, surgeries, referalls to other "specialists," and that is it. It is rare for a doctor to know about.......exercise, soft tissue problems, fascial issues, or nutrition. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it is true. They just aren't taught this stuff in school.
Now, about your soft tissue, "will there be repercussions down the road?" it is hard to say what the repercussions will be. As I stated, once you break the fascial layer, things don't function the same way. Posture can change, movement can change, etc.
Fascial is like saran wrap the envelopes our entire body. it is continuous. It never ends. It isn't like muscles. For example, the long head of the biceps brachii attaches to the supraglenoid tubercle and inserts into the bicipital aponerosis. it has a begining and end. However, there is fascia which winds around it (and the tissues that comepose it) and connect it to the tissues in the forearm (distally) and the tissues in the shoulder (medially).
The fascia even envelopes our organs and cutting or detroying fascial lines can negatively impact them as well. I have a friend who had major heart surgery at the age of 13 (she had a rare heart attack for someone that age and actually died and had to have major surgery to save her life and then several surgeries after that). The result was several large scars on her chest, in her abdomen and in her groin area. Now, that is a ton of damage to her fascial system. She suffers from lower back pain, pain in her thoracic spine, severe and intense migrane headaches, and she has pain when she breathes. The doctors don't know about how the fascial system works, so they prescribe her meds for all of these things. The fascial is really tight (pulled tight do to the scaring that has been formed) and just needs to be manipulated a bit. If I go in and work on her scars and person some friction on them and start to smooth them out, and then do some indirect myofascial release work.....is it any suprise that she can breathe better, her headaches go away, and her lower back pain no longer hurts? Of course not! All I have to do is find the adhesions and perform some soft tissue manipulation on them and things get better.
Take any injury that causes adhesions in the fascial system, overuse injuries for example. I have a friend whom has had medial epicondilitis for 2 years. Painful stuff. Now, that is a type of fascial scar tissue that we can't see. Obviously no one did a surgery on his elbow. Now, I come along and perform one, just ONE, treatment of Active Release Techniques (ART) on his medial epicondyle structure and the next day he reports back to me that he feels that his elbow pain is at about 80%. 80% in one treatment after 2 years of chronic pain!!!! Would you take that? I would!! If I do one or two more treatments, I get him back to 100%.
Like I said, doctors wont know about this stuff. One lady had gotten some knee surgery (I can't remeber what it was, but it was very invasive) and she was being seen by a friend of mine. She had a ton of scaring. The doctor told her...."yea, you can get all the massage you want, but that stuff wont work for your knee pain. it is just going to hurt. that is how it is after the surgery." (what a sweet doctor!) So, she goes to my friend and he does his assessment and starts to work on her and work on breaking up the scaring. She walked out of the office pain free for the first time in months and went hiking the next day. She saw him about 5 more times. She went back to her doctor and told him were to stick it.
The good thing for you is that you are in Canada, which has awesome schools for massage therapy. If you look around, you should be able to find a competent therapist.
Barry Jennings is in Canada and he is one of the best around in Myofascial Release Techniques (teaches a lot of seminars). You can search his site for a practitioner in your area and then contact them and tell them about your problem. If you click on 'clinic' at the top of the page you can read about fascia and what his treatments do for you. Myofascial Release Resource Center
Hope that helps,
Patrick
thanks for the info Pfunk, one question to the general IM population....would medical insurance cover this? Im in Canada.... If not im going to bother the hospital to give it to me for free as well as scar removal treatment, least they can do. Do you think its irrational to ask for such things, given whats happened to me? Lemme highlight certain aspects of my experience thus far......
-Constant visits to the hospital enduring excruciating pains for prolonged hours
-Tired from late night/early morning visits
-Was admitted into hospital, but was in hospital for 3 days before I had another attack during the night, the next morning they FINALLY got me in
-Too late, had to do the surgery open, gangrenous gallbladder, was toxified and had a drainage tube when i woke up draining god knows what
-then on the third day i was moved to the pediatric ward because I was 18, which was the cutoff, and they needed more beds.
-prescriptions for useless painkillers/pills
-Constant visits to the hospital enduring excruciating pains for prolonged hours
-Tired from late night/early morning visits
-Was admitted into hospital, but was in hospital for 3 days before I had another attack during the night, the next morning they FINALLY got me in
-Too late, had to do the surgery open, gangrenous gallbladder, was toxified and had a drainage tube when i woke up draining god knows what
-then on the third day i was moved to the pediatric ward because I was 18, which was the cutoff, and they needed more beds.
-prescriptions for useless painkillers/pills
you can ask. i don't know how it works in canada (sorry). In the states, people can get massage (medical or orthopedic) and have their insurance cover it. not all insurances cover it. some need a doctors referral to cover it and most will need ICD-9 codes and diagnosis codes from the doctor for the insurance company to deem it "legit". If anything, you can find a practitioner or clinic near you, ask them if they have worked with any insurance companies, contact your insurance company and see what their policy on medical massage is.....go to the massage, pay for it and get the receipt and then submit it to your insurance company and wait for them to send you a reimbursement check.
patrick
patrick
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I dunno about Canada with the different laws and what not but in the US if they let it get that bad, somebody fucked up and legal action might be possible. I'm not a lawyer though and we don't know everything that transpired but something sounds bad.
Also just to add to P-funk's little speech about how MD's aren't all they're made out to be i'll share a quick story. My mother's been having terrible headaches for a long time now, on and off, like cluster headaches. She went to the doc and found out she was hypertensive. He gave her Coreg and sent her on her way. She took it for a while and it helped and the headaches somewhat went away etc. Her blood pressure stabilized for a while and we kind of stopped paying attention. Today she had a very bad headache again and her BP was up. So she took her pill and i decided to practice some more on her (i've been doing lots of reading on the stuff Pat spoke of). So i did a quick 10-15 min 'session' where i palpated some tightnesses etc tried to release them and did some other myofascial manipulations. Her headache was almost gone, the pressure by her eyes was completely gone. In 10 min, done by me, a person who's been reading about this stuff for like a week and doesn't really know what he's doing. Just to make sure the pill didn't kick in and do all that we measured her BP and it was still high (as well oral meds need 1/2-1 hour to start working). Now imagine what a skilled practitioner would be able to do with her.
Also just to add to P-funk's little speech about how MD's aren't all they're made out to be i'll share a quick story. My mother's been having terrible headaches for a long time now, on and off, like cluster headaches. She went to the doc and found out she was hypertensive. He gave her Coreg and sent her on her way. She took it for a while and it helped and the headaches somewhat went away etc. Her blood pressure stabilized for a while and we kind of stopped paying attention. Today she had a very bad headache again and her BP was up. So she took her pill and i decided to practice some more on her (i've been doing lots of reading on the stuff Pat spoke of). So i did a quick 10-15 min 'session' where i palpated some tightnesses etc tried to release them and did some other myofascial manipulations. Her headache was almost gone, the pressure by her eyes was completely gone. In 10 min, done by me, a person who's been reading about this stuff for like a week and doesn't really know what he's doing. Just to make sure the pill didn't kick in and do all that we measured her BP and it was still high (as well oral meds need 1/2-1 hour to start working). Now imagine what a skilled practitioner would be able to do with her.
yea, trigger points have huge headache referral patterns. Triggers in the traps, the subboccipital muscles and the splenius capitis and splenius cervicis are big ones. Once you deactivate them, they will go away. I had a guy who had gotten (in the span of 6 months) a major back sugery and a full hip replacement. His balance and gait were all messed up, causing him to take these smaller steps and shuffle. Due to that, he developed some trigger points in his lower leg. The doctor told him it was just ankle pain and that he needed orthodics and that it was what it was. I did 30min. of work deactivating trigger points in his posterior tibialis. He walked out of there pain free, never complained about ankle pain and through away is orthodics!!
This is powerful stuff and some doctors can set aside their ego and actually admit they don't know. We have a big time oncology doctor who workouts out at our facility because he loves to be in shape and improve his golf game (of course!). He gets lots of soft tissue treatment done after having both knee's replaced and he has lots of adhesions and thixotrophic changes in his fascia (as we all do as we age). He said the other day (now this guy has a big ego)...."it is really great what you are doing. in all honesty, doctors don't know shit about working with soft tissue. most wont admit it, but this just isn't stuff we learn in school. it is really sad that they don't teach us how to handle these problems because it is huge. i am thinking of taking this 300hr workshop on myofascial release to learn more about this stuff. it is really great."
you have to find someone who knows how to do proper therapeutic massage though (not someone who does that fluff and buff spa shit). they will be able to release tension that you didn't even know you have!
This is powerful stuff and some doctors can set aside their ego and actually admit they don't know. We have a big time oncology doctor who workouts out at our facility because he loves to be in shape and improve his golf game (of course!). He gets lots of soft tissue treatment done after having both knee's replaced and he has lots of adhesions and thixotrophic changes in his fascia (as we all do as we age). He said the other day (now this guy has a big ego)...."it is really great what you are doing. in all honesty, doctors don't know shit about working with soft tissue. most wont admit it, but this just isn't stuff we learn in school. it is really sad that they don't teach us how to handle these problems because it is huge. i am thinking of taking this 300hr workshop on myofascial release to learn more about this stuff. it is really great."
you have to find someone who knows how to do proper therapeutic massage though (not someone who does that fluff and buff spa shit). they will be able to release tension that you didn't even know you have!
