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As we grow older it is almost inevitable that we will experience some part of our body showing signs of wear and tear and, in some cases, there needs to be a surgical intervention.
If you have been one of our subscribers for a while, and if you have taken a look at the Health section of our website, you will be aware that I live with osteoarthritis. A condition where certain bones in our body become deformed and degraded over time, particularly if we have over-used them over many decades.
I remember being shocked when I had a lump on my knuckle examined because it was so swollen and puffy. The specialist extracted some fluid from under the swelling then then he said ‘…but that is all I can do because that’s swollen bone caused by arthritis. Do you knit a lot?’ he asked me. I explained that no, knitting was not something I had done since I was growing up, but I explained that I have spent most of my working life on a typewriter or computer! Sadly, now, my hands are quite deformed, stiff and painful but I can still type, so I’m grateful for that!
Having been a fitness teacher for over 50 years, and in those early days we wore jazz shoes rather than cushioned trainers, inevitably I am paying the price with my feet too. The arthritis in my feet was first diagnosed in 2015 and it has, of course, become progressively worse ever since. In 2019 I had some of the bones in my right foot fused together which dramatically reduced the acute pain I was experiencing. Whilst the arthritis is still there, regular paracetamol makes the discomfort bearable.
Now the time has come for my left foot to be given some attention so I made another appointment with Mr Maneesh Bhatia, my foot surgeon from 2019. After an MRI scan and X-ray, it was revealed that the foot is in a bad way with arthritis and I have Muller Weiss syndrome! I had never heard of the condition before, so I looked it up:
Mueller–Weiss syndrome, also known as Mueller–Weiss disease, is a rare idiopathic degenerative disease of the adult navicular bone characterized by progressive collapse and fragmentation, leading to mid and hind foot pain and deformity. It is most commonly seen in females, ages 40 - 60. Characteristic imaging shows lateral navicular collapse.
The only good news is that I have escaped it by some 17 years since the top predicted age range of 60! The bad news is that my left foot is in a really bad state and something needs to be done about it.
My surgeon consulted with several of his foot and ankle surgeon colleagues to seek their opinion of the best way forward. Should it be broken down and rebuilt, then held together with steel plates and screws or should the bones be fused using bone marrow, and held together with supporting pins? Probably because of my age, it was decided to fuse the bones together. Thankfully, I can have the operation quite soon but, as before in 2019, it will mean that I will be unable to weight-bear on that foot for 12 weeks in order to give the bones sufficient time to fuse and become strong.
To be honest, I welcomed the early date of the operation as it means that we can get on with it - and soon, hopefully, I will be able to walk again without being in agony. In the meantime, I decided to make a plan. A pre-operation fitness plan!
Because of my arthritis in my hands, I find using crutches very, very painful so when I had the similar operation on my right foot, I came up with an idea. I used a typist’s chair on wheels to move around the house in any rooms with wooden or tiled floors. It worked a treat. With my operated leg encased in plaster, I became quite nifty by using my ‘good’ leg to manoeuvre the chair forward or backward wherever I wanted to go. And it worked a treat. So, I had a trial run this morning.
I went up the stairs on my bottom, keeping my to-be-operated-on left leg off the ground, hands pressing on the stair two stairs up from my feet, and hotching myself up, one step at a time. That all went well but it was hard work so I decided I need to do this several times a day between now and the day of the operation.
Once at the top of the stairs, I realised that I had lost strength in my legs and arms from five years ago and I was disappointed to find it impossible to lift myself up from the floor on one leg to sit on the typist’s chair on the landing. (I do remember it being really tough last time.) My solution was to get a footstool to hotch myself onto initially, using that as an intermediate pausing point before transferring myself onto the ‘typist’s chair on wheels’ ready for action! It worked. However, I realised that, without question, my hands, abs, right (good) leg and arms, all needed to get stronger.
In my gym session later, Judith my fitness trainer who is also a physio, gave me a sequence of exercises designed to strengthen those key areas.
Here are the exercises:
- Sitting on a folded towel, hands pressed on the floor, lift hips off floor and swing hips back and forward again, then lower. Repeat X 10
- Lie on my back, bend both legs then lift to be at right angles and hold them there. With hands by my side facing upwards, straighten alternate legs x 20
- Sitting on a folded towel, hotch forward to travel along the floor five times before turning round and going back again.
- Sit up on the folded towel, legs bent, knees falling outward and feet facing and touching each other. With a 2 kg weight in each hand, raise weights above head, then bend arms down my back and straighten up again toward the ceiling. Repeat x 10.
- Lie on my back, bend and lift both legs then straighten them upwards, hands placed either side of straight legs. Using resistance from the hands, ease legs apart, release hands then slowly bring legs back together again. Repeat x 10. Bend legs to lower.
- Repeat total sequence again.
To be honest, I’m glad I only have a short period of time prior to the op because it has focussed me and stopped any thought of excuses for not making the effort to do these exercises. My motivation is that I need to be as independent as I can be and be able to move around safely without crutches. Let’s see how I get on!
If you are anticipating surgery on a leg, knee or hip sometime in the not-too-distant future, please take a look at the videos on our Orthopaedic Surgery page which have appropriate pre- and post-op exercises, that we recorded with physio Judith. You can also find out more about Arthritis on the page in the Health section including how I cope with my own experience of this nasty condition.
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