Anyone who
have successfully achieved their fitness goals (be it losing weight or gaining
healthy muscle mass) have to attribute their success to two most important
principle; Persistency and Consistency. Similarly, these principles also
applies to successful injury rehabilitation; Persistency, Consistency. With
that, I will like to share about my personal experience of suffering from one
of the most gruesome back pain nightmare 2 years ago: Sciatica.
In case if
you wonder what Sciatica is, it is a painful condition caused by the
compression of the nerve in the back lumbar spine disc. The result is sharp
pain on the left side of my lower back (hurts most when I sneeze and cough),
especially during the morning waking up time; difficulty bending down to wash
my face at the basin and wearing my shoes or picking up something on the floor,
numbing ache on my calf and hamstrings. And it is also an unfortunate fact that this
condition is permanent; no surgery or any forms of magic can alter the damage
that’s inside my lumbar spine, I have to live with the fact that there is a non-reversible
degenerative condition on my left side of the lower back.
The good
news is that with physical and physiotherapy, my condition can improve and the
pain will go away. It is just like for the case of HIV; HIV infected people can
still live on normal lives till old age and die, provided they take their
medications properly and regularly. And so I have no choice but to seek
professional medical help from both physio and physical therapy. Not trying to
sell anything, but this company known as ‘Ziklag Fitness’ (http://www.ziklagfitness.com/)
have been treating my back with real good improvement results. I followed all
the given prescriptive exercise instructions to do daily; and yes, the results
slowly comes out; after about 2 weeks plus, I do notice the pain on my lower
back lessening; the daily morning torture of stiff back and dragging pain from
trying to bend my back at the basin to wash my face also slowly disappear. And then the pain completely disappear… I
thought life could get back to normal again… And this is the dangerous part; I
started to get slack… Those prescriptive exercises that I am supposed to do
every day, I started getting lazy and completely did not do anything. And guess
what; the sharp pain on my lower back returns again.. and somehow this time it
seems to hurt even longer.
And so the
nightmare returns back, and I have to combat it by diligently working on those
prescribed rehab exercises again, as well as a visit again to Ziklag. About 3
weeks plus later, the results appeared again; the pain on my back lessening,
and my back slowly becomes healthy again. On another hand this time, I have to
do my prescribed rehab exercises religiously and daily with no fail; otherwise
my back nightmare episodes will return back again.
So there I
am now… with a better healthy back condition, though there are still times that
I feel some tingling slight discomfort on my left lower back, but it is still a
manageable condition. The prescribed stretching and core exercises have already
become my ‘religious’ affair which I performed daily without fail.
Therefore,
it takes strong persistence and consistency to see the real results in injury
management. Recovery/rehabilitation does not happen overnight; the body needs
time to improve and adapt to changes. And once the body started adapting to
changes, consistent effort have to be done to maintain the body’s new
adaptation. Those prescribed stretching and core strengthening exercises have
to continue; otherwise the lack of it will lead my back muscles to fall back
into its usual weak condition, and pain comes in again.
In final
conclusion, kudos to ‘Persistency’, ‘Consistency’ for a good injury rehabilitation outcome, and also in everything
we do!
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