1) Absolutely seek the advice of a good PT. It's not like going to a chiropractor where you'll get signed up for the "forever plan". You go, pay for a few visits or even just 1 and they will evaluate and give you things to do on your own. You're empowered directly to change your trajectory vs being reliant upon them week after week. In many states PTs have what is called "direct access" meaning they can see and treat you without any MD referrals being required. Also if you can afford it (HSA/FSA accounts are fine here), try to go to a "cash pay" PT that isn't burdened by death grip of our insurance system. You'll get better 1:1 attention and probably a much less overburdened PT.
2) Stand up and walk around at least a couple times an hour (I know, not practical for many of us) for 5 mins or so.
3) Sit on an exercise ball while at your desk and simultaneously think about your posture on a background thread. This will help you with core strength quite a bit over time. This is something most of us with desk jobs (and even most of us period) could use improvement on. She sees serious athletes who even have weak <random latin word> muscles hidden in spots they'd never think about.
4) Sometimes, like when it comes to pain in hands/wrists, you would want to seek out an occupational therapist (OT) instead of or in addition to a PT, who don't specialize in treating those types of dysfunctions.
Good luck getting/staying well!
disclaimer: This is not medical advice and I have zero formal training in any physical or medical science. Consult a professional. :)
This is the easy bit. Just drink A LOT. Pick a drink, any drink. Caffeinated or not, carbonated or not. Whatever you like drinking and fits your diet. Keep drinking it at the appropriate temperature. You can geek out on the drinkware, I got a Stanley Stein, which will keep an iced beverage cool for 8 hours easily.
Nature will make sure you have to get up more than once during the day =)
Come to think of it, I should start practising brushing my teeth with my non-dominant hand, but it might take 30 mins instead of 2, and waste a lot of toothpaste.
I bought an exercise ball for this purpose, but then learned that exercise balls can rupture under you with disastrous consequences. It may happen rarely, but I would rather not risk it.
As someone who has done physical therapy for different issues, this is spot on. Lower back issues were actually due to weak hamstrings, and ankle issues due to weak calves.
Doing daily mobility and strength exercises as part of my mourning routine improved my health as a whole. A couple months in, and all random aches, pains, and soreness that i'd feel upon waking up or during the day were simply gone. And it only takes me 30 minutes a day. It's a pretty awesome alternative to doom scrolling.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
/i
It's obviously good for me (what kind of exercise isnt I suppose) but id probably feel better if I was getting out of it what I wanted, which i'm not and i've now been told I probably never will. But I cant stop because even though im not getting what I want, if I stop, in the long run, i'm probably even worse off. (Though, isnt everyone really.)
Id far prefer to move over to something like a bodyweight fitness program on a three day a week rotation, but I just cant do it physically until I undergo further evaluation and likely surgery, and would not have the energy to fit it in on top of my current physio regieme even outside of that.
I didnt mean "I wish it was only 30 minutes" in that I hate doing it, i'm just tired and it takes a lot of my time. I think at 30 minutes a day, it would just feel a whole lot easier to fit into my life, as opposed to building my life around it. I need a minimum now of about 1h30m before work, and after. Which means everything else in my life has to bend to accomodate that.
I do miss sessions occasionally, but I try not too because i'm only cheating myself, nobody else. I have a spreadsheet I use to keep myself honest.
I need to stop sitting, and revert to a hunter gatherer movement pattern of walking, running and crouching. Unfortunately i live in nyc and my desk job may kill me.
If we can use AI+VR/AR to put an end to desk work, it will dramatically benefit billions of souls.
Ah, we’re in very similar situations. I’m sorry to hear of your struggles. I unfortunately know too well what you’re enduring. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone.
I had severe cervical myelopathy where my spine severely compressed my spinal cord, causing permanent damage. I underwent a cervical decompression and ACDF, but I’ll live with an incomplete spinal cord injury and its consequences for life.
On top of that, I have a herniated disc and Tarlov cysts in my lower lumbar spine. As if the cervical issues weren’t enough, I now fall randomly, making staying upright a constant challenge. The pain from both issues is so severe and relentless, I struggle to even explain it other than to note that it is "life altering."
I’m a few years out, and we’ve now discovered that my cervical spine is compressed again, along with nerves on the right side of my body. I started another physio program through my pain management team, but its not helping, more surgery is the only real solution. Still, I have to stick with physio because, as my medical team says, I need to be fitter than most people to manage my condition. Things are difficult enough that I don’t have the energy to question their guidance. What little energy I do have goes toward trying to stay employed.
> I need to stop sitting, and revert to a hunter gatherer movement pattern of walking, running and crouching.
I have a sit-stand desk and alternate between standing and sitting throughout the day for pain management. I’ll stand and pace for an hour, then sit for a while. It helps with pain in the moment, but I’m not sure it does much more than that.
Adjusting for equivalent level of activity, people carrying around a lot of extra weight tend to have commensurately more muscle from carrying that extra weight around (try wearing a 40kg weight vest day and night for a few weeks - you too will have to put on muscle just to get through the day).
It's generally considered to be a lot easier for an overweight person to get lean as a side-effect of getting strong, rather than the other way round.
doing a half hour at the gym 5 nights a week was like half of my weight loss routine basically.
- Increased muscle mass raises your BMR, enabling the same weight loss rate at a higher caloric intake
- Strength training combats your body's tendency to burn muscle as well as fat when in a calorie deficit, focusing the weight loss on the body component you want to get rid of (the fat).
Lifting weights for one hour twice a week has alleviated my problems completely. I feel healthier than ever!
So even just doing a little bit of mobility exercises with light weights helps a lot.
I can highly recommend a book called _Built to Move_ [0]. It tells you to do a lot of things that many people consider common sense, like walk every day, eat vegetables, sleep 8 hours, etc. However, it also explains _why_ to do these things pretty concisely. The most impactful argument it made to me was you can't counteract sitting for 12 hours a day with any amount of exercise. You have to sit less and move around more.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1911868117
So... the end-game of ergonomic chairs might be no chair at all.
So the problem with "sitting in chairs specifically" is probably not the chair, but the fact that the chair facilitates longer "sedentary bout lengths". If this is correct, then the commenter suggesting to get up and move every so often is probably on point.
Indeed, it's actually what prompted me to go look over the document.
I remember, as a kid, when out and about and before getting into the habit of sitting in a chair all day every day, I would sit on the floor or on random objects, like stones or tree trunks in the countryside. I wouldn't be able to sit still for long periods of time and would need to at least change positions.
Whereas now, in my "ergonomic chair", I can sit for more than one hour at a time with minimal, if any, changes in position. Ditto for my couch (which wasn't marketed as "ergonomic" in any way).
That being said, I've tried using a computer in other positions, like putting the laptop on a coffee table and squatting or sitting on the floor in front of it, or having it rest on my thies while squatting. It gets tiring very quickly, especially in the shoulders and neck area.
So, in my case, what seems to work best is to get up regularly and walk around the room for a bit.
Two hypotheses:
1. I was just incredibly weak due to being sedentary and even a tiny amount of strength training released enough “get stronger” juice to my system that other muscles also got stronger.
2. Pain is a complex phenomena that relies on our bodies being properly calibrated and lack of any kind of strenuous activity mis-calibrated my pain system.
I’m more inclined toward hypothesis 2. Further life experience has led me to believe that our physical and psychological systems are very much dependent on existing in a specific, narrow milieu to function properly.
What I discovered this year is hitting golf balls is the right amount of gentle strengthening and accidental PT. I started going to the driving range regularly like 4 months ago and my wrist pain is almost entirely gone.
So mostly this is to say everyone should keep trying and not give up. Every body and injury is different. You just have to experiment and stay active.