Physio appointment numero uno

Okay, so I had my first physio appointment today. I feel the need to start off by saying that for once, I had a positive experience with the NHS! YAY!!
The physio was absolutely lovely. Sods law, she's on maternity leave as of the end of this week so my next appointment will be with someone different, but I've been assured by today's physio and by the receptionist (whose back he mended :P) that he's just as good.

Today's physio was young and very friendly and smiley. I'm so gutted I don't get to have her again! She was dressed like my P.E. teachers used to though... I guess that's what you would expect... but it un-nerved me a little. I hated P.E. teachers.

So, first of all the appointment consisted of having a chat and going over my symptoms. I'd been referred on the basis of having hypermobility which the physio confirmed, although I felt the need to point out I'm not really sure if fibromyalgia or ME are on those notes but they're problems as well - she said that the fibro was written on the rheumatologist's referral sheets but that ME wasn't... I presume the rheum saw them as the same thing. Hmmm. Anyway, so we had a chat about my symptoms and then she went through a checklist asking things like "do you have problems with X and Y?" and when I said yes, which was after explaining in detail my other symptoms, her reaction was "ohhh :( you poor thing!" which was very sweet... she was just as amused as me at how many things are going wrong with my body haha.

Oh, also she was shading in a diagram of the front of the body and one of the back in the areas I said I had problems with... I was silently amused by the fact that in the end, both diagrams were basically entirely coloured in hah :D

She asked me to rate my pain at its best and at its worst (0 being no pain and 10 being intense pain). I think the problem with that is that it's all relative and it's hard to compare pain at one time to another because you don't have much perspective. I said that I'd estimate that at best, it's a 2 and at its worst a 6/7 - I'm lucky that there isn't really any intense pain, it's more of a dull ache which is annoying because it's uncomfortable/ unpleasant, but not because it's intense or causing me distress.

Anyway, after that she tested whether my nerves were working by getting me to push certain parts of my body against her hands (hah that sounds inappropriate!) i.e. my head, my feet, that kind of thing. It was really funny though, purely because my muscles were so, so shuddery and trembly... she was shocked at how tired they were. After doing all of that she concluded that while the power is behind the muscles (i.e. the nerves from my brain to my muscles are working correctly), they're just unbelievably tired and need a lot of strengthening (showed by the violent shaking).
She got me to to squats (she ended up having to hold on to me as I kept almost falling over), and lie on the bed (if you can call it that) and do certain things like bend my knees and move one to the side while keeping one still. That failed miserably :P both were shaking like mad and I found it really difficult to control the trembling and the movement of my legs, at which she commented "ohh you're even struggling to do this!" in a "oh gosh, I didn't realise you would be this weak when I first saw you" kind of way. It wasn't in a horrible way, I think she was just surprised/ felt sorry for my complete and utter lack of strength hahah. She established that during the knee thing, even my core muscles were shaking (i.e. stomach muscles behind the abs) and said that it's worth starting at those muscles and doing basic strengthening exercises to hopefully give those muscles a bit of control and stability thus helping my limbs in the same way. I don't know how long it'll take to notice a difference with that though - the problem is also remembering to do the exercises, I'm so scatty that knowing me it'll just completely slip my mind. I might have to write a big note to myself on the wall saying "REMEMBER PHYSIO EXERCISES" which might look a bit strange (and pathetic) to any visitors but oh well!

Also, I had a doctor's appt after the physio. Convenient to get them out of the way on the same day, actually. I spoke to my doctor about my problems sleeping at night and after a lengthy chat about the possible side effects of the amitryptiline, I agreed to try it. I think the side effects she was worried about were the possibility of thermo-disregulation (I think that's what it was) as it can make you quite unwell apparently, and other than that there was just the possibility of being anxious/ jittery/ on edge. I don't like feeling like that so I hope that doesn't happen. Anyway, it's generally risky because I'm already on an anti-depressant, so adding another one in (amitryptiline is a mild anti-depressant which has sedative effects) can cause problems. I think the other risk was serotonin syndrome which I also hope I don't get :| but yes, overall my doctors appointment was also good. My doctor is always lovely, but I don't always come out with amazing outcomes purely because a lot of the time there isn't much she can do about most of the symptoms. Anyway, it's nice to be finally trying something for the sleep because it's such a pain in the arse. I hope the amitryptiline helps!

That's all for now, I really can't think of anything interesting to say.

Will hopefully post again soon :)