Currently doing internal (gnail) femurs now, trying to ask for help in brainstorming ideas to manage the pain
So far, this is what I've been experimenting with to manage the pain:
1. Taking the painkillers and nerve pain pills 1 hour before physical therapy, not sure how much it is helping. Need to try this a few more times to see if its worth it or if I should change the timing. Not sure the dose, but maybe 1 tramadol, 2 paracetamol pills, and one lyrica for nerve pain 1 hour before physio? Maybe there are better strategies?
2. Resting/only doing seated quad stretches in the hour or so after clicking to prevent right hip pain that I sometimes get after clicking, not sure if this is the best option or if I should do more movement or just rest with eyes closed right after clicking. Have found that certain stretches right after clicking make the right hip pain worse
3. Ice padding (putting a big soft ice pad on the area of pain) everything down whenever there is pain, I mean I don't see any downside of this yet aside except the hassle of having to go to the fridge. The only time I don't do this if I have very mild hip pain and then I don't want to even go the refrigerator because sometimes that very short trip increases the hip pain a bit when I could have just waited the mild hip pain out instead
4. Big pillow under knee seems to help alot for knee pain when combined with ice padding the knee down
5. Instead of clicking in the morning before physical therapy, I am experimenting with the idea of just focusing 100% on stretching the morning right before physio and then doing the 'morning' clicks after physio. This seems to be easier in terms of pain. Not sure if there are better strategies instead of this though?
6. Sometimes I noticed if I take a step that is a bit too far with my right leg, that also causes the aforementioned right hip pain. Lying on my side seems to be bad, like I can do it without pain initially, but it sometimes it seems to cause hip pain later.
7. Another patient and I noticed that when the weather outside is beautiful, sometimes the nice sun/gentle breeze feels good enough to just distract you from the pain, I'm gonna do more stretching outdoors using a wheelchair + my leg on a second chair I think
8. Ozboy recommended just pointing hot water shower nozzle at your thigh, but unfortunately the "hot" water of the montaza hotel in Athens rooms is a bit hit or miss, for me maybe like 90% of time it is sort of only warm-ish at max warmth, but occasionally gets hotter after like 15 minutes. I'm hoping Novotel in Athens will have more consistent hot water, maybe I just got unlucky with my rooms in Montaza?
Could you help be brainstorm some other ideas?
I heard that in the olden days before anesthesia they had patients bite a stick during surgery, and I'm thinking about getting some kind of thing to bite on during physio that won't be be bad for the teeth, not sure what object might be good? Maybe a small hand towel? On the other hand, I am thinking maybe tensing the jaw or any body part during stretching might be bad compared to trying to go limp