Time for Physical Therapy Improvement
 

I have TOS and have been going to Peter Edglow for 6 weeks. I've been doing the home exercises and puchsed the home equipment. Usuallly I can perform the exercises twice a day. I know every person is different and every case is different but I would like to hear from some of you how long it's taken with physical therapy to see some improvements. Thank you

What does Peter Edgelow think about your progress or lack of it?

I don't remember exactly how long it took to see improvement with the edgelow protoccol but it was on the order of several months. My friend who also had a severe case took a similar amount of time to see improvement.

The pool exercises and the edgelow protoccol were the treatments that got me the most functional gains. My baseline pain is much lower as well.

When you are somewhat better, Edgelow can refer you to someone with TOS who teaches pool exercises for TOS cases.

I bumped up my tips on learning the edgelow protoccol thread for you as well

so I encourage you to keep at it even though it doesn't appear to do anything yet.

If you are working or still using your hands/arms etc quite a bit it will take even longer to see results.

Sharon Butler explains it with a health bank account analogy -

you are starting out at zero if your pain/symptoms are high.

you go to PT & rest, so you gain say, 100 dollars in your account { I mean good PT - specific for what helps you to feel better}
but if you drive to work and work and drive home you have to deduct 75 from that account - subtract even more $$ if you hurt more than before you went to work...
plus you would subtract $$ for any other uses that you did between PT /resting etc..

this is just a simple version of her analogy

- but it really made sense to me when I was having PT & still working
and why I wasn't gaining much by way of improvement at the time - but of course my doc, wc and employer didn't take that into consideration.... that some will need time the off to see good results with PT.

All I was doing at that time was going to work, PT sessions and then resting at home with ice/heat on my arms and doing the gentle stretches. My dx at the time was basically RSIs. I didn't know much about TOS til later. LOL if I knew then what I know now...

I've had a limited amount of Edgelow protocol therapy (only 4 visits- workers' comp restricted more) and I am not sure I responded well to it. I couldn't get the breathing right and that's what's so essential to the program.

I have negative feelings about physical therapy on the whole. That just might be a bad mood talking right now though... bad week. :paperbag:

It takes time. Every case is different. I saw Peter post surgery.
But don't forget that his is a progressive program. He doesn't give you all the exercises on the first day. It's good to believe that it's helping as opposed to questioning the therapy; especially when you are doing a course of PT so very well designed and working the very best! Remember, You are so lucky to have landed in the area that you have.You have access to excellent PT, classes, doctors and support groups.


I would explore doing the cardiovascular part of the program if you are doing so well. One thing that has helped a lot of us also living in the area is Ai-chi. It's done in a warm pool; you can check with your local YMCA to see if it's offered near you.
http://www.atri.org/aichicert.htm

Other things you could add are Feldenkreis lessons or Qi-gong. You could ask Peter if he knows of any classes or practioners since he is usually pretty current and knowledgable. Another class that has helped is Qigong in the warm water, called Aqua-chi
http://www.possiblesociety.org/003_p...rchive_005.htm