BelowTheMean – Stryde Femurs w/ Dr. Debiparshad – Nov 2020

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sucks you got covid. glad you recover. free covid vaccine XD

cant wait for the recovery now that theres no more walls to stop you
cheers

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Thanks for the update! Sounds to me like the COVID is making it hard to feel great about progress over the past week - bad luck 😐; stay limber and I’m sure this is going to be much improved soon...stay strong 💪

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Congratulations! I hope your recovery is going well from COVID

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BTM, just got a chance to review your updates. I am sorry you got covid. From your notes, I don't think you would have any permanent impact cause of covid. But to be safe, can you ask your primary doctor to arrange for some tests (on lungs, kidney, liver, etc.) for your general health?

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Quote from: Serilium on March 29, 2021, 01:45:15 AMsucks you got covid. glad you recover. free covid vaccine XD

cant wait for the recovery now that theres no more walls to stop you
cheers
Hopefully smooth sailing all the way to the end!

Quote from: L8GrowthSpurt on March 29, 2021, 02:37:05 AMThanks for the update! Sounds to me like the COVID is making it hard to feel great about progress over the past week - bad luck; stay limber and I’m sure this is going to be much improved soon...stay strong
I'm definitely able to work out more now, so hopefully my recovery will accelerate.

Quote from: RazalDazal on April 01, 2021, 03:07:29 PMCongratulations! I hope your recovery is going well from COVID
Thanks, RD. Even during the time I had COVID I think my legs loosed up a decent amount. The consolidation phase definitely feels better than distraction phase overall!

Quote from: StrydeNailChallenge on April 02, 2021, 07:11:49 AMBTM, just got a chance to review your updates. I am sorry you got covid. From your notes, I don't think you would have any permanent impact cause of covid. But to be safe, can you ask your primary doctor to arrange for some tests (on lungs, kidney, liver, etc.) for your general health?
Hey SNC, I haven't even considered the possibility of organ damage. I haven't really gotten sick recently so I haven't had a PCP since mine retired in 2015. I'm going to the hospital for X-rays in a week or two, so I'll see if I can schedule some tests for that time.

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Surgery Week +20, Consolidation Week 3

Day 1
I went to sleep very late last night due to a work emergency but woke up feeling only somewhat tired this morning. I'll take it as a good sign given that just a few days ago I was incredibly tired every morning even after consecutive days of over nine hours of sleep. My legs are still a little tired, stiff, and sore from yesterday, but that’s probably reasonable given how long I walked. I hope to recover quickly from the fatigue so I can do more long walks and improve my gait. I also hope that I will be able to push myself hard at PT, which I’m starting back up later this week. I was very busy with work today, but I managed to complete a stretching session during a long meeting where I didn’t have to talk much. My legs weren’t feeling that much better in the evening and I was also feeling a bit lazy so I didn’t record a gait video.

Day 2
I got a lot more sleep last night and woke up at a reasonable time, feeling pretty refreshed. I think I can confidently say the COVID-19 fatigue is finally gone. I was busy at work again today but I found some time to stretch during the day. My legs have recovered from the long walk outside two days ago but unfortunately I still didn’t feel like recording a video today. I think I'm just going to wait until the weekend to do it.

Day 3
This morning I woke up feeling some nerve activity in the middle of my right shin. It was pulsating and at first I thought it was at the skin level so I applied some pressure on it with my left foot. That’s when I realized it was the nerve inside and I couldn’t stop it by putting pressure my my skin. However, it wasn’t painful and it went away as soon as I got out of bed so no big concern. My legs felt pretty good in the morning which was fortunate because I had PT later in the day.

At PT I warmed up on the treadmill, walking 0.32 miles in 10 minutes. I started at 1.5mph and worked up way up to 2.5mph, which felt like a pretty quick pace. I am definitely feeling weaker on my left side than my right side again, as I am less stable when putting weight on my left side. After that, I did some stretches and then all the regular PT exercises that I had been doing before my forced break from PT. I think there may still be some lingering weakness from COVID-19, because my heart rate went all the way up to 173bpm while I was exercising. It rarely went over 150 during PT in the past (except when I was trying to push myself on the bike.) Fortunately, I didn’t have to do the leg press today. While the PT was working on me, she said that my muscles definitely felt looser than they did two weeks ago, which was not all that surprising to me. She said my hamstrings were not loosening as quickly as my quadriceps though.

In the afternoon when I was sitting in bed working, I randomly felt nerve pulsing in my right shin again, in the same spot as this morning. It lasted for about 15 minutes and then went away by itself. I see it as just another sign that fully recovering from LL isn’t going to be so quick and easy. After work my legs were still pretty sore from PT, so I just relaxed all evening.

Day 4
This morning I woke up with pretty stiff legs, but they weren’t as sore as I would have expected them to be considering how tired I was after PT yesterday. I worked a bit in the morning and then went to PT. At PT I warmed up on the treadmill again and walked at a steady 2.0mph pace for 10 minutes, totaling about 500 meters. My PT wasn’t in today, so one of the other PTs worked on me instead. She manually stretched my hamstrings, quads, and piriformis muscle. I actually haven’t stretched my piriformis muscle in a while because toward the end of lengthening it would actually hurt my knees a lot to do that stretch. She got me pretty good with all the stretches but I’m sure it helped because there is no way I would have stretched that hard on my own. Next she had to roll out my quads with the painful rolling pin thing. One minute on each side, literally 6-7/10 pain. My quads felt pretty good and very loose afterwards though. I continued to do more exercises (no leg press yet fortunately) for the remainder of the hour and I felt like I got a decent workout in. My heart rate did not spike up as high as yesterday while working out, which is a promising sign.

In the afternoon while I was sitting on my bed working I realized I could easily cross my legs now (at the ankle.) I like sitting with my legs crossed in bed and find it easier to sleep on my back when my legs are crossed. This is a big improvement because just a few days ago my IT band would still feel stretched and uncomfortable when I crossed my legs. I got in one more stretching session in the evening.

Day 5
I woke up with somewhat stiff legs this morning, though they felt much better after I walked around the house for a bit. I didn’t have to stretch or run the massage gun on my legs to loosen them up, so that’s another sign of recovery, albeit pretty small because I think it would still help to stretch and massage my legs. I took my last prescription grade Vitamin D pill and don’t plan on getting any more unless my next X-rays look bad. I’m still taking a daily Vitamin D and calcium supplement, and I have Synergy Bone Renewal which I occasionally take as well (I would take it more consistently but I always forget.)

At PT today I warmed up on the treadmill again. I walked just over 500 meters at a 2mph pace. It continues to be difficult to walk without any swinging. The tightness in the legs and hips make it difficult to have a normal gait, and my stabilizing muscles are still weak. I did a bunch of random PT exercises as usual, but I had to do the leg press today. With both legs I was barely able to do 25 reps of 145 pounds. On the single leg press, the PT set me up with 117.5 pounds, which I could not move one bit on my left leg. I had to go all the way down to 90 pounds to be able to do a set of 20 on each leg. I think I lost about 5-10 pounds while I had COVID-19 and it’s clear that some (or most) of it was muscle, which is not great for my recovery.

Aside from that, in the evening my legs were pretty tired and I couldn’t even walk with a decent gait without feeling some pain in my legs. I think I feel it the most in the various joints or muscles in my hip area. I would probably eat some acetaminophen if it was worse but I'll avoid taking any painkillers unless I have to.

Day 6
My legs were still pretty sore this morning and I’m guessing it’s from doing three days of PT back-to-back. I want to recover quickly, but I guess my body still has limitations and I need to rest my legs when they are tired. Therefore today will just be a rest day and I don’t plan on doing any leg exercises except stretching.

Day 7
I woke up with pretty stiff legs this morning, but that quickly went away when I got up and started my day. I ran the massage gun on my legs for good measure though. I was going to go out for a one mile walk today since the weather was perfect, but I figured if I did that I probably wouldn’t be able to record a gait video afterwards. Instead, I recorded a video in the early afternoon before going out. Then for my daily exercise I just went grocery shopping in the afternoon.

At the grocery store I'm very confident that no one noticed anything wrong with my gait while I was pushing the cart around. It’s definitely not noticeable anymore with just a bit of light support for balance from holding the cart as my body won't wobble or sway at all. Honestly things feel pretty normal while grocery shopping, except I’m a bit slower than normal people when turning or changing directions.

In the evening I had time to edit and upload the video. Here it is:


I think my gait has improved a little bit. However, there is still definitely weakness on my left side. When I put weight on my left leg my body still swings to the left a bit for balance. I believe this is due to weak stabilizing muscles on the left side. I’m not sure if it’s one of the gluteal muscles or something else (maybe there's a muscle connected to the IT band?) but I will ask the PT to focus more on training that area starting next week. I feel like even though it has been months already, that stabilizing muscle doesn't seem to have gotten much stronger yet, whereas on the right side I feel the equivalent muscle is doing its job like a normal person's. For flexibility, I still can’t lift my knee to the point where my thigh is horizontal yet (which I could in the week 10 video) so until I get to that point I can’t say that I’ve recovered past where I was in the middle of lengthening. As for my quad flexibility, both legs can get to at least horizontal with the ground when I bend my knee, so definitely a big improvement over three weeks ago. Continuing to improve at least at this rate over the next three weeks would be great so I’ll keep stretching and pushing my legs!

One other thing I want to note is that I’m still not that great with stairs as I went up and down some stairs today for the first time in a while. Going up the stairs was fine, but going down the stairs I feel very weak and unstable when my right foot is leading, because my left leg is very weak and lowering my body weight puts a lot of strain on my left leg. I have a feeling it might take a while to fully regain my confidence when going down stairs. I think it will help once my femurs are consolidated as well because I have to lower myself down the stairs pretty slowly to minimize the impact on the nail and I think that’s part of the reason my left leg struggles since it’s not that strong yet. If I could lower myself quickly then I won't need the muscles in my left leg to keep me steady for as long. However, by the time my bones are consolidated I imagine that all the muscles in my left leg should be a lot stronger as well.

Finally, I don’t feel like there’s a big enough difference in my legs from one day to the next to warrant breaking this journal into daily entries anymore. I also don’t feel like taking daily notes anymore. Basically on average I improve a tiny bit each day and my muscles feel looser and stronger each day. There’s no magical feeling that my legs are suddenly normal after finishing lengthening; I have to continue working on them and wait for my body to continue to heal. I will try to summarize each week and update once every few weeks. Once I feel like my gait has recovered better I’ll probably switch to monthly updates or just updating when something interesting happens.

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Awesome man..

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walk looks good and with time will be better! good recovery belowthemean

no worries about daily updates this is plenty

cheers

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Bravo on the dedication - both on your recovery and the diary. Very helpful and appreciated 👍.  Btw, you look way taller! Nice job!

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What’s up BTM!! Lengthening to 8cm ain’t no joke huh??? I remember once I hit 6cm, I was like “holy sh*t!!”....and then from there to about 7.9cm for me the tightness was crazy as hell man.

Don’t worry about your range of motion, eventually it all comes back. Sometimes one leg is better than the other. But slowly but surely it all comes back. My left leg is like nothing even happened. My right leg hamstring is perfect, I just have a few degrees to improve on the quads, but it’s not affecting my walk or anything. Main ordeal at the moment for me is rebuilding the muscle mass and strength in my glutes, hips and quads.

And yes, going down stairs is a fun adventure but that has really improved for me. But I do remember the first few weeks of consolidation... I was holding on railing for dear life going downstairs!!! Lol