Observe your own recovery

Anonymous
August 11, 2006 at 12:01 pm

My GBS was diagnosed April 15, so we’re probably sailing some of the same waters. ๐Ÿ™‚

Very early on, I noticed that I could do things early in the morning that I couldn’t do later in the day. An example is lifting my right ring finger. Gradually, as the recovery proceeds, I’m able to lift that finger later and later in the day. For [I]my[/I] recovery, I was able to devise my one month rule: [i]If I can do an activity first thing thing in the morning, it’ll be about a month before I’m able to do it any old time of the day that I choose.[/i]

This shouldn’t be news to anyone, but I never see it mentioned here: a well rested muscle performs feats that a tired muscle can’t. And your muscles are always fresh after a good night’s sleep. That’s all my “one month” rule says. Your recovery may have a different time scale, but it’s always true that a well rested muscle will outperform a tired one. Take the time to discover your own rule.

My leg pains went away, not with exercise, but with stretching: everything in my legs had tightened up over just a couple of days of illness. I spent a month stretching out hamstrings, quads, calves, and heel tendons before the pain let up. My PTs were great with showing me how to stetch each muscle or tendon safely given that I could topple over in a light breeze when I first started. And I still have to stretch out my calves. Funny thing is that everyday I spend less time stretching them out in the morning: I anticipate that a few weeks from now I’ll just get up and there won’t be any pain in my calves. ๐Ÿ™‚