I had my first of 12 PT sessions yesterday.
Did some mirror-box with my foot (hard to try to trick the brain, but I am working on getting the hang of it). Put my foot in some soft puff balls. Did some up and down movement and did some touch with a textured dowel. All the touching was done by me so I could control it. Idea being don't allow anything to get painful, stop as soon as you think its getting to be too much.

It wore me out. I can't even explain how exhausted I was from that one hour. I couldn't talk straight when I got home. I was dizzy. I slept for hours. And then went to bed earlier than usual and slept straight through the whole night for the first time in forever.

It did give me a flare that night, which I have to report to him, because he doesn't want any sessions to give me flares. He says that will mean we went too far.

Anyway I'll be going three times a week... this is going to be something!

Good luck with your PT; an hour seems like a lot to handle.

I couldn't even handle half an hour, and my orthopedist at the time cancelled my PT (absolutely forbade me to still go). He gave me exercises I should be doing throughout the whole day. Not one half hour intense treatment, but 2 to 5 min. several times a day.

It helps hugely to spread it out!

Becca,

I am not at all surprised that you slept for hours after PT. At first I literally passed out like I was comatose. One day after a grueling PT session I slept for 5 hours straight, woke up for 2 and then slept through the night. An experience nearly identical to yours. My take is the brain is re-setting itself.

My PM doctor espoused intense workouts. My sessions are one hour in a warm salt water pool. I feel like I have been drugged afterward, however I recover in a few days and notice little improvements every time. I hope this will be true for you, too.

Good luck! I am rooting for you.

Its a lot, but it is supposed to help rewire the brain, so to speak, so that I can learn that all the messages from my foot are not "danger" messages.

Mirror therapy is all good and well as long as you don't have it on both sides, like me. 2 legs/feet, 2 arms/hands.

It sounds to me like you are in pretty good hands. Everything you did sounds good...but maybe just a little too much the first day. I'm glad that they want to keep an eye on the therapy so you don't go into flares. Elevated pain will happen of course...but it shouldn't reach flare level. Improvements are slow and a little at a time...but it's amazing what the therapy can do over time. When people would come visit me after a week of therapy they could always see a difference even if I couldn't. Best of luck to you with the therapy!