Let's Get Physical, Physical (Therapy)

Yesterday I had my second session of physical therapy as recommended by my OB. At my first appointment I felt a little stupid going in because my pain is never as great in the morning as it is in the evening. While the PT was working on me, I really wasn't feeling a lot of pain, but as soon as I left the pain began and I felt pretty sore for the rest of the day. She concluded that my pain was more than likely a muscle strain brought about by posture and work movements. Posture isn't a strong point of mine unfortunately (you would never have known that I danced for many years), and pregnancy is only making it worse. My height finds me constantly leaning over because my arms aren't long enough to reach things, and the constant back and forth motion at work doesn't help things. She recommended that I am not to be a cashier for more than an hour or 2 at a time. I took these concerns to Target,who had no regard to her instructions. I worked 6 days straight leading up to yesterday's session, so I've had plenty of time to feel lots of pain. I've been working really hard at trying to remember and follow my list of exercises- but we are so busy at work, and with me constantly cashiering, it's sometimes hard to squeeze in the 2 minutes of required stretches per hour.

So at my appointment yesterday, the PT looked disappointed when I told her that work wasn't moving me around to keep me from cashiering up to 6 hours straight. She started the session with asking me how the pain was feeling- good news- the pain isn't lasting after I leave work, bad news- the pain is now on my left & right side at work + I've had some excruciating pain in my rib cage toward the end of my shift- now this could be an extremely severe case of heartburn, because I usually don't eat until an hour or 2 before I leave work- but combined with my back pain, I think I know what Scarlet O'Hara felt like when mammy laced her up in her corset. The pain on my left side is probably from over-compensating for my right side. I've definitely worked a lot harder on concentrating on my posture and trying not to do too much leaning over the belt to reach things.

My actual therapy started with a deep tissue massage- this got me aching. I think my therapist is a little stumped about the root of my pain in relation to where it is- I mentioned my scoliosis to her, which she said definitely is contributing to my pain. After the massage, we got to work on the exercises. Today I had way more exercises to work on then with my previous appointment, including some work with a band and a ball. I was feeling sore at the end, but not like last week. I have my exercises to work on over the next week, and luckily I only have 4 days in a row to work before my next day off (Dr.'s appointments every other week are really helping this)!

My next therapy appointment is Monday afternoon following my Dr. appointment. For now I've got the rest of this week to test out my back at work, and work on my new exercises- I'm hoping to start to see some improvement. We're only 4 weeks away from the dreaded holiday shopping season- and everyone has already told me that it's an absolute nightmare. It makes me not even want to Christmas shop! So let's keep our fingers crossed that the therapy is working for the sake of my back, and most likely, my sanity!