Starting Physical Therapy On My Knee

If you have been following my articles, then you are aware that I have been having trouble with my left knee. The pain has progressively gotten worse. My doctor thought it would be a good idea that I start physical therapy.

The decision to start physical therapy

If something more was going on with my knee, then an orthopedist would want to know that I tried physical therapy before being seen. I agreed to it, reluctantly. See, I have never had experience with physical therapy before. Not being sure of what I would face seemed to put added stress on top of the stress caused by my dreaded knee.

My first day

The first day of therapy went the way I expected it to, honestly. I really didn’t figure we would do much since the therapist did not know my history. It started out with him asking me about my knee. Questions like how long had it been bothering me and did I do anything to it.

From there, the therapist began to push on the knee and feel around it. I'm not going to lie, it was not pleasant, especially when he got to the side of my knee. It was very painful to the touch.

That was followed up by him having me lay on what had to be the hardest bed I have ever been on. It did not take but a minute or two for my back to start hurting. This is where most of my psoriatic arthritis pain comes from.

A weak knee

After his initial assessment, I do have to admit I was shocked when the therapist spoke of how weak my knee was. I was not expecting to hear that. He said I would need to come in twice a week for therapy so hopefully, they could build the knee back up.

I was not exactly excited about that but agreed to it nonetheless. He also printed me out four pages of exercises he wanted me to do at home on days I was not there at the clinic. He really got my attention when he said that if I did not do them it would take even longer just coming into the clinic.

Maybe he was trying to scare me, but hey it worked. The pain in my knee was telling me not to take this lightly.

It's not all bad

How is therapy going? Well, I cannot say it has been fun but I really cannot say it has been bad either. I guess because it being my knee, they do not push me in therapy too much. When I say it is starting to hurt they make me stop whatever they have me doing.

Yes, I could say that it hurts all the time but what benefit would I get out of going twice a week? I do, however, tell them when it starts hurting more than I think it should or more than I can tolerate. To that end, therapy has not been bad.

PsA is no joke

I just wonder how long they will keep me coming back especially twice a week. That is a bit of a hard schedule to handle when I also care for a mother-in-law in her seventies who has her own set of medical problems. I also have an MRI scheduled for the middle of January on that knee so I guess it will determine where the physical therapy goes from there.

Let’s just hope that physical therapy helps and the need for a knee replacement is not recommended. Psoriatic arthritis is no joke when it comes to the damage it can cause on our joints.