Friday, September 26, 2008

Electro-shock therapy


I had my first physical therapy (PT) session yesterday. It’s for my aching back. The back with the herniated disk, with the desiccated disks, the one with the bulging disk. I sat with the very nice PT person and showed him what exercises and stretching I try and do. He thought they were all helpful. But then handed me two pieces of paper with six more stretches and six more strengthening exercises. He then showed me all the moves and told me to do them twice a day. He also mentioned a Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation machine. TENS machine. This deal is a battery pack with some electrodes on it that you attach to your back and zap yourself. We were about 45 minutes into the hour long session, when he had me lay on my stomach and push up onto my elbows. Another technician then came in and attached four electrodes to my lower back and turned on some machine. He slowly dialed up the machine and I could feel the back start to jiggle. He took it to a comfortable level, then applied a cold pack and told me to lay there while the machine zapped my back for 10 minutes.
After that, we talked about lumbar cushions. He told me to just try rolling up an old towel and taping it.
I then headed over to Wal-Mart to purchase a cold-pack.

1 comment:

Schweers' Mom said...

Woo hoo for Wal-Mart. Sure makes my life better.