Gait Yet Again

I am working with yet another “expert” on my peculiar gait issues that make walking such a challenge for me.  I’m really hopeful that I might see some improvement over time if I do what she asks me to do.

I have written many times about my search for explanations and solutions to my walking challenges.  I’ve heard about as many explanations as the dozens of specialists I’ve seen over my 6 decades.  Everything from leg length discrepancy to CP to polio to congenital hip problem.  Until now no one has offered any real curative path and breaking my hip last year was a definite complication.

But recently I started seeing a physical therapist who has turned around my husband’s elusive foot problems.  She is one of those people who delights in treating difficult problems.  She is also the owner of Body Dynamics, a multi-purpose health and wellness center in Arlington.

I must admit I came to Jennifer somewhat of a skeptic after the last expert had pronounced my right hip hung at the wrong angle since birth with no possibilities of improvement.

But from the get-go she has said repeatedly that it’s a soft-tissue problem and that bodes well for treatment.   Her theory is that the motor development part of my brain was affected during my very traumatic breach birth, impeding my ability to walk  normally from the start.  For all these years my brain and body have walked that way with no real effort to correct my gait.  

Because my stomach muscles are not doing their job, my back gets too involved in my effort to walk.  Because my right hip muscle (the one that was cut) is weak and my adductor muscle is too tight, my right knee is pulled in.  But it’s muscles, not bones and joints, that are causing the problems.  Muscles can be strengthened and stretched.

So that’s what we are doing.  Each of the three times I have seen her, she has done some manual adjustment and given me “homework.”   Eventually it will take me about 90 minutes a day to do the homework.  I’m assuming that once my body develops sufficient strength and learns to move differently, this time commitment will at least be reduced.

My feeling is that if this really has a chance of working, I am more than happy to do my part in the process.  I really hope Jennifer is onto something that no one else has tried and that her efforts combined with mine will be successful.