Trauma care is excellent as well. Many things our ancestors died of even 150 years ago no longer threaten our lives today, which is amazing. It doesn’t, however, let us off the hook for being responsible for doing our part.
After my surgery, I was given a booklet of physical therapy (PT) exercises to do and told to “Walk as much as possible.” Yet when I went to my 3-week follow-up, I was told I was walking too much. It was obvious that most of the advice in my recovery protocol was aimed at elderly patients when I am in my 40s and active. Usually, I can tell when I am pushing too hard, but my hip replacement had different sensations than I am used to. I wasn’t sure if I was experiencing normal recovery soreness or if my discomfort was the result of doing too much. I asked, but no one could give me an answer, so I had to figure it out on my own.
I have often found that to be true. When our son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes as a toddler, we hoped for extensive nutrition information to help us manage his disease, but we were told “Just let him eat whatever he wants and give insulin for it.” I knew it was more complicated than that, but no matter who we asked in the medical world, no one could tell us more. We figured out everything for ourselves and by talking to the diabetic community online. Now we offer the same support to other families, sharing what we’ve learned over the years.
Throughout human history, our health care has often involved our communities. Those who have had similar experiences can be an invaluable resource. But in the end, it still comes down to trial and error, and learning our own body’s needs. I had to feel my way through my surgery recovery every day, considering where I had pain, what felt tight, what felt overworked or underworked. I designed my own PT program using the exercises I was given as a foundation to build strength, mobility, and balance.
I learned that each time I increased my walking distance, the following day I needed to do something gentle, such as yoga or light mobility work.
I learned I needed to vary the surfaces I walked on because too many days of using sidewalks caused soreness. I found I had to dial back the weight on my rucks because it took longer than expected to build up my strength and endurance due to changes in my movement patterns.
None of that was information I received from the medical world. I had to pay attention to the results of what I was doing to learn whether it was too much or not enough. Some exercises I thought would be helpful I had to back off for a while until I recovered further, such as lunges. I ensured that my diet was supportive of healing the bone and tissues that were impacted by surgery so I had to dive into some studies on what that might look like.
Looking back, the medical support I received was great, but as soon as I walked out the door, I had to find my own way. Sometimes, it was frustrating. We spend so much money on medical care that it often seems it should include more. Ideally, for me, health care would be a holistic experience but that’s not what our medical world is set up to provide. The medical industry still divides the body into systems and components with little recognition of how they impact each other.
We need to invest in ourselves and be accountable for learning a basic amount of information about how our bodies function so that we aren’t solely reliant on a medical world that is inhibited by insurance companies. In the US, in-person PT isn’t usually prescribed for a hip replacement because a study suggested it didn’t improve the outcome. As a result, insurance companies mostly refuse to pay for it.
I disagree with that conclusion. I believe that the pre-hab and rehab that I did, including exercise, mobility, and nutrition support made a difference in my recovery. I can see it in the comments from others online who struggle to recover because they don’t have the support they need to understand what is happening in their bodies. We have no choice but to take on some of that responsibility for ourselves. That has always been the case, and it always will be, simply because there is too much variation in the human experience for a doctor to cover it all in the limited time they are given to work with patients. Their education often fails to acknowledge that the human body isn’t just components, but an entire ecosystem.
Taking good care of your body can prevent many diseases and injuries. At Wild Gym, that is one of our ultimate goals: to ensure you have access to tools and resources to take care of yourself. The more you use your body, the more you learn about how it functions, and that can only help when you do need to utilize disease and injury care. The healthcare part of that equation is up to us.
Wishing you a wild and healthy week!
-Kim
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