Why no Physical Therapy?

I just realized it has been almost a month since my last post.  Well that is for many good reasons!  First I have been out enjoying the last days of warm weather up here in Maine.  I have kept myself very busy between walks, trips to visits friends, trips home for a wedding, and camping trips.  I consider myself completely healed.  I had to cancel my check up with my doctor, because I had missed work two weeks in a row for my traveling :), so I do not go back until the end of the month.  But everything is doing remarkably well.  I probably will not post much more after this.  I promise to get a picture up of my scar.  I think it looks really good.

So I thought I would spend a bit of time discussing my doctor's reasoning for not making me go through any Physical Therapy.  At a wedding I was at last weekend I was talking to my friend who is a Physical Therapist about my surgery and I admitted how happy I was I didn't have to go through any PT.  So my doctor does not prescribe PT for most of his patients.  For most of the ankle injuries he deals with, he puts you in a cast for 8 weeks and orders to be non-weight bearing.  This 8 weeks allows the injury to heal completely.  Then after the cast is removed, he wants you to walk.  His reasoning for not ordering PT is he says after the cast is removed and you start to walk again, the ankle swells, gets red, and hurts!  Physical Therapists are trained so when they see that, they make the patient slow down and rest and stop whatever they were doing that caused that.  My doctor said that is going to happened, and you have to simply push through it.  He doesn't want the PT to slow down your walking again.  I will be honest, walking again hurt like hell.  It was hard, but I was so happy to walk again so I just did it.  Luckily I also had Vicodin that he prescribed :).  When I told my friend my doctor's reasoning, she seemed offended.  But agreed that she could see his point, and obviously it worked for me.  But she said she could see it not working for many patients who baby it or find it hard to really push themselves, and I do agree with that.  I am not saying PT is bad after this surgery, but this was just my doctor's reasoning.  Honestly, I was happy not to have to go through any PT, its a pain in the ass.  I went through it for over 10 weeks for my ACL repair.  So I was thrilled when I didn't have to go through it again.  Obviously, my doctors method worked for me and works for his patients.

My surgery was on June 21st, 2010.  Today is October 8th, 2010.  You do the math on what week I am on, I tried and stopped.  I am so happy to be walking again and back to normal.  I have been going to the gym and working out again.  Today I am going to swim some laps, which I am very excited about.  If you have to go through this surgery, it sucks, I will be honest.  However, it is worth it.  I am so glad I had it done and it is fixed.