Guest guest Posted December 31, 2003 Report Share Posted December 31, 2003 Farah: I've responded below: > Doug: > i really want to learn some good strengthening > exercises and have someone make sure i do them right. > that's why i want to go to the hospital for special > surgery. i only get six weeks at a time anyway. Make sure you go armed with as much information as possible. Insist that they tell you what they are trying to accomplish with each exercise. Don't let them tell you to " strengthen this & stretch that " without knowing what the objective is. For example, " We need to stretch your gluteus medius and your tensor fascia latae because your ITB is pulling your kneecap laterally. " They should be talking to you at this level and you need to be competent enough to understand a sentence like that for the PT to be maximally effective. Learn your anatomy! > i did call that doctor at grand central and he doesnt take > my insurance. he charges $400/ visit and i have to pay > 80% of that plus treatment expenses. when i get back > to NY (im in CT on vacation), im going to take a few > weeks and look for another osteopathic doc who does > take my insurance. (manhattan has 100's of doctors w/ > crazy specialties). Again, take a look at that http://www.aaomed.org site and search for doctors in New York. There are at least two others who do prolotherapy in the City, as well as a few in Brooklyn, Queens, etc. Maybe one of them takes your insurance. Also, the guy I saw (Dr. Cohen in Danbury, CT) is phenomenal. He may very well be one of the best doctors in the country for this type of condition. > Im glad dr fulkerson set me straight, if i had > listened to the doctors at the HSS, i may have screwed > up my knees. I'm glad too. And if I had listened to the docs at HSS, I'd be limping around today, instead of thinking about how many miles I'm going to run tonight. > He said he wssnt sure he wants to do the > scrape as well, but he said that was the only surgery > that MAY be reasonable for me. IMHO, Surgery should only be performed if the doc can tell you there is a 99%+ certainty that it will fix your problem. Never submit to a surgery that " may " work, even with 80 or 90% certainty. As I understand it, once you scrape away the hard, outer surface of your patellar cartilage, it exposes significantly softer cartilage underneath. This may make you feel better temporarily but it is just a matter of time before the softer stuff wears away too. Futhermore, just scraping away the rough spots does nothing to identify what caused the damage to the cartilage in the first place, which is the most important component of recovery. Oh yeah... I forgot about this before. Until you find a suitable treadmill, can you tolerate walking at all? I guess you are looking for a treadmill to lessen the impact of walking/jogging, but if you can tolerate walking (or even light & short jogging), you'll be able to keep your muscles strong and your cartilage, ligaments and tendons strong. Are you close to the Park, or any park for that matter? Maybe you can walk on the grass? Good luck and keep us (or at least me) up to date, Doug dougfromct2002@... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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