Physio Update

Although I had arrived to my session with potentially a rather negative state of affairs given about ten days of fatigue and intermittent joint pain and all-over global pain,  I allowed K to review A's notes of me who kindly gave me physio last week. A had bravely tried to do some work on my thoracic spine in an attempt to free that up, but unfortunately that made lumbar spine worse and by last Friday I was so hypermobile I could hardly stand. A suggested I was doing too much, and K agreed that I might need to look at how much I have on. K was also aware of the demands of my new role at Laban and the potential impact that might have. K and I also discussed my book on hypermobilty and how this might also be affecting me at this time. Upon observation K thought she should do neck work on me, and I agreed. K said that C2 was "out" in my neck and that this would be significantly contributing to my fatigue. She also worked on my pectoral muscles and the surrounding tissue area as I was saying that I had been having a great deal of arm and hand pain just lately. She explained this was because the brachial plexus area and nerves and blood vessels were compromised. This does feel freer this evening, as does my neck. My energy levels are improved, although I am tired - but that is normal. I had a very poor night sleep last night and have had a busy day.

I said to K that I had liked the exercises she gave me because it put me in control about doing something for myself in order to try and cope with the chaos in my body. Since my deep abdominal muscles still seem very inactive, K has asked me just to consider initiating pelvic tilt without actually doing the whole movement. This is because at the moment I am still using my quads and hip flexors to  help and ribs and diaphragm far too much, as T has also noted. In order to help me initally, K took my legs so they wouldn't work. I found this difficult because I was immediately dis-empowered. After a while I got the idea of doing this.

K asked to see me sitting upright. She used her body as a support (like a chair) and asked me to try and retain what she said was actually a very good posture, but using less muscle power to retain it. That is my second exercise to do in a real chair at home.

K and I had really interesting discussions (as we so often do) about the psychological aspect of the management of JHS. It was a good physio session and I thanked K again for all her support.