Physio Update on Deep Core Muscles, swimming and Kinesio Tape

Kinesiotape
It is one week since my last entry and it seems that applying virtually no tension to the kinesio-tape has meant that I had no skin reaction to it at all and the only reason I had to remove it five days later was because of the amount of time I had spent in the water - either in the swimming pool or in the bath and it became soggy!
Yesterday M taped me again in the same place and applied about 10% more pressure and I am already itching 24 hours later, so I suspect this tape will be very short-lived. I might be lucky enough to retain it for another 24 hours, but think that will be it. There is no point in leaving it and having a huge reaction to it.

Swimming
The exercises that M gave me to do in the hydrotherapy pool I am fortunate enough to live ten minutes away from have been incredibly helpful, far more helpful that the 30-40 minute Pilates regime I had which had done nothing at all. In the water I had support and was doing the following exercises which I later transferred to doing on a very regular basis throughout the day during the week. I managed to go swimming twice in the week. The hour long rehabilitation session at my pool involves half an hour of no bubbles when I do widths of (predominately breast stroke with dumb-bell floats, so I can do the arm action as well) with a little bit of crawl legs, which are difficult and painful for me. The rest of the session when the bubble jets in the pool interfere with withs involve:

• Plies in parallel holding the pool edge - outbreath and in plie, abdominal relaxed and then engage everything on the ascent.
• Straight-leg stretches, pulling in abs when returning to neutral
• Balances with eyes shut in the water to gain a sense of bringing my weight forwards and improving my altered proprioception from spine in huge extension (on standing) to a more correct posture.
• Lunges - forwards, backwards and in a neutral ballet second position across the pool and back
• Walking forwards and backwards in the water
• High knee raises

Pain and Fatigue
It became apparent that there was both pain and restriction in flexion in my right hip which is the most mobile, probably owing to the surrounding soft-tissue having to work hard to control movement whilst my abdominals are working insufficiently.

I had one pain-free day in the week and felt great and clear-headed and managed some ballet. The rest of the days involved periods of extreme fatigue in the morning and pain in the trunk and shoulders, and sacral area, with some global "needle" like points of pain. I was also having nights with muscular twitches and spasms.

Physio Treatment
M worked on my right hip and then on my trunk in order to eliminate the terrible spasm and needle like pains that persist throughout it.  When M was working on back I was twitching and spine was 'wiggling' and reacting all over the place. There were also some temperature changes - not surprising as we were working on the sympathetic/parasympathetic nervous system chain. At the end of the treatment, M re-taped me and asked me to be doing muscles that involved rotating and bending my thoracic spine (particularly in the water) and to re-start my psoas exercise. He also asked me to continue using my new physio ball.

Post Treatment
I felt much more  on top of my right hip and managed to have some feeling of deep abdominal connection - say, 30% on my walk back to the station. I then had a very poor night sleep with thoracic spine very sore.

Next treatment: one week.