M&I / GBMINI

Another noticeable change as my “sciatica” eases, is an increase in walking speed. I’ve sometimes used the App MotionX GPS to record my morning (or other) walks – it uses the iPhone GPS to track position over time, and computes distance and speed.

Back in late July when I began going for a morning walk, it recorded 2.45 miles in 53 minutes, so averaging 2.8mph:

That basic loop is still the walk I most frequently do today, but to keep to my 45-50 minute goal time, I now have to walk a loop as far as the arrow.

For comparison, from August 21st is a record of my walk back from the HOA fitness club – it’s too far to walk each way and do fitness, but it nicely shows my improved walking speed covering a similar 2.4 miles in less than 37 minutes, averaging 3.9mph!

I’ve not really increased speed any more since then, but today was my final Physical Therapy visit as it looks like I’ve gained and learned all I can. I have a set of “homework” exercise that I will need to do regularly “forever”, so that the pain of July / August never returns. And I’d like to keep up my daily walk, because aside from the health benefits, it’s quite interesting to watch the sunrise – we will see what happens when Florida “winter” comes …

For those that don’t know from Facebook, back at the end of June I visited the Doctor because I was struggling with severe leg pain that made it basically impossible to sit down, drive, etc! Named as “sciatica” (of course naming something doesn’t help, but presumably makes the Doctor happy), I went through a batch of visits including X-rays, an MRI, and eventually epidural injections and physical therapy (ongoing still).
Advice from the Doctors and Facebook friends included “age”, “weight”, “sitting wrong”, “sitting too much” with suggested treatments also including “chiropractor”, “yoga”, “acupuncture” … but the best treatment for most of the last few months has simply been “avoidance”! We had to cancel our “summer vacation” MINI Takes The States, as there was no way I’d be able to sit and drive 6-8 hours a day for a couple of weeks!

I didn’t sit down any more, not for work, not for relaxation (standing to watch TV is quite a strange thing); I either didn’t drive anywhere, or Margaret took drove, while I laid the passenger seat as close to flat as I could (and often that wasn’t enough either, more than once we just turned round and went home again).
For work, I got a standing desk (and a mat to stand on), which I’ve used since mid July.

Back in late June, I classified my pain level as “12” out of 10! That’s because my original claim of 7 or 8 was then proved wrong by even worse levels of pain a few days later. Various medications had minimal effect, and the first epidural injection brought pain down to maybe 8/12, still not good.
A second epidural injection in early August brought the pain level down more, and ongoing physical therapy has definitely taught unused muscles to work again and is supposed to have also helped with pain reduction. However it’s basically impossible to figure out what causes less or more pain – you might do what appears to be the same thing one day to the next, but have zero pain one day, and too much pain another day!

But as August progressed, it’s clear that I’m making progress. Now, mid September nearly three months since it all started, there are times when I have no pain at all – or maybe just a slight tingling which I can eliminate just by moving. When I wake in the morning, my discomfort level is generally about 3, but a morning walk helps reduce that level, and standing to work all day doesn’t make it any worse.
I drive myself to/from PT now (25 minutes each way), sometimes drive with no increase in pain; I can even sit down for as long as an hour or two to watch TV, if I’m careful how I sit.

So I wonder if I’d be able to sit to work, sometimes at least. The standing desk I got basically requires disassembly to adjust it’s height, and the alternative of repeatedly moving the computer setup from high to low desk, and back, is not a practical solution. Thus, I ordered a new “crank adjustable height” desk this week; it arrived today and I assembled it this afternoon. Its’ longer than my first one, so a better setup, and with about thirty seconds of turning a crank, it can be lowered (or raised again):

I’m hopeful that I will continue to improve, and this desk will allow me to experiment with sitting down at work, at least some of the time; my goal right now is to be able to fly to Texas in late October, for Formula One, without suffering too much …