Back at home

I got back home from hospital on Wednesday the 12th of Jan, It's now Sunday 16th Jan. Each day gets a little better. The swelling in the leg which was right over my Knee is now reducing. I had tried icing the swelling while in hospital, and now I am back at home I am experimenting with compression which seems to be working well.

I have used compression post racing  since 2004. A chat with Sean Yates, convinced me to give it a go. Sean had been using it for years inc' when in Motorola. Good enough for me.

Currently I am using 2XU, it's used by pro's and developed with the Australian institute for sport. They also use it at the Great Ormand Street Hospital.  I need to have compression on the right leg post op' for DVT protection. But they don't provide it for the operated leg, which I thought was strange.

I talked to the surgeon and physio about it in the hospital and they seemed to think calf compression would be useful. If you subscribe to the thinking that you want to reduce swelling then it would make sense.

My Left leg had a lot of swelling even the left calf. so night one calf compression as shown in the pic below left. Amazing over one night the calf was back to normal. I did use the loo a lot night one, but fluid goes somewhere I guess. as an experiment I left the calf compression off, but the calf did not refill.. interesting I thought.. SO the compression had a longer effect than when you wear it.

So I moved on from Calf Sleeves yesterday to full legs upto the top of the thigh. full on the right and just above the knee on the left.

again swelling down in the left. I didn't want to progress too fast, as I speculated that your body can only deal with so much fluid in movement. I needed to think about blood flow too and I also wanted to use compression on the right leg as that was getting a lot of work, each time I stood up and the right knee was getting a few twinges. Secondary strain and compensation injury can happen as a result of overuse of other parts of your body doing more, or even sitting differently. So finding a way to support and deal with that stress was important.

So overall getting better, the left quad is very tight and probably a result of operation, being clamped and moved and new metal work inside the leg.  so now more stretching and finding a way to limit the losses in other areas, including the heart and lungs.

Stairs on crutches.. that's scary the first day.. but getting used to it, Time to get a lift to starbucks ;o) well if you can't fit the ride in, you should still have the coffee!


still going with Cherry juice and plenty of rest.