I hate doing my physical therapy. It is boring, repetitive, and makes me nauseous. It really does work though. Sometime this weekend I am going to have Derek do the exercises and tell me what he sees/feels while he is doing them so I can know what I am striving for. Since my inner ear is so out of whack, I can't tell what is normal and what isn't. It is probably funny to watch me do these exercises, since they're not the standard PT that you think of when you're working on a limb or back injury. Instead they work on my balance and visual perception.
There are 3 components of balance - the visual, the proprioception (what you physically feel - your feet against the ground, for ex.) and the inner ear. If 2 of these are intact, you can still function ok. In my case, my vision and feeling are fine, but my inner ear is shot. The balance portion of my exercises has me disable the 2 working mechanisms and deal with the one that doesn't work. I take 2 pillows, stack them and stand on them (to disorient my feet/ground connection), close my eyes, move my head back and forth, while marching in place. It is HARD!!! If I didn't do this in a door frame where I hit something when I am falling, I would be on the ground in seconds because without my eyes or my feet to tell me, I cannot sense when I am falling.
I also have to do visual perception exercises. These train my inner ear to be in sync again with my eyes. I take a marker, fix my gaze on it, and then move my head back and forth. At this point, I can read the word "Crayola" about a third of the time when my head is moving. This represents big progress, as the inability to visually focus when my head is moving has been one of the most debilitating parts of this (checking blind spots, distinguishing mailboxes from garbage cans from people during a run).
There are 3 components of balance - the visual, the proprioception (what you physically feel - your feet against the ground, for ex.) and the inner ear. If 2 of these are intact, you can still function ok. In my case, my vision and feeling are fine, but my inner ear is shot. The balance portion of my exercises has me disable the 2 working mechanisms and deal with the one that doesn't work. I take 2 pillows, stack them and stand on them (to disorient my feet/ground connection), close my eyes, move my head back and forth, while marching in place. It is HARD!!! If I didn't do this in a door frame where I hit something when I am falling, I would be on the ground in seconds because without my eyes or my feet to tell me, I cannot sense when I am falling.
I also have to do visual perception exercises. These train my inner ear to be in sync again with my eyes. I take a marker, fix my gaze on it, and then move my head back and forth. At this point, I can read the word "Crayola" about a third of the time when my head is moving. This represents big progress, as the inability to visually focus when my head is moving has been one of the most debilitating parts of this (checking blind spots, distinguishing mailboxes from garbage cans from people during a run).
1 comment:
I think it's fascinating that you can retrain your brain like this. It's so bizarre that they never pinpointed a cause, did they? One of my coworkers just went to see her doctor because of dizzy spells. She fell out of chair talking on the phone the other day. I hope everything works out.
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