Thursday, January 12, 2012

Muscle loss and gain

Can hardly believe it's been so long since I've posted.... oh wait, I can.  The Cody's now 14 months and getting more active and sleeping less during the day!

I started going to physical therapy (PT) a bit ago (2 months?!) and have gotten myself worked about up to the same physical level I was at before Cody came.  I of course chat with the therapists at the clinic most of the time I'm there and have really enjoyed picking their brains on the how, what, and whys of what I experience with the MS.  Monday was especially 'productive' and I learned something I hadn't heard before - with a person on bed rest, it takes only 4 days for the body to start losing muscle mass and atrophying.  Then, the real kicker, it takes 8 weeks to gain back what is lost if all you do is daily 'household' activities.  Of course the numbers are a little different for someone who is still active but moves to a wheelchair, like I have done most of the time to work with the baby, but it still shows how quickly we 'lose it' when we stop using it.  I haven't found quite the exact paper my therapist was telling me about, but this one is close.
http://users.hal-pc.org/~ghill/1966.html

The paper really shows the importance of trying to keep ourselves as active and fit as long as we can.

On a side note, I got a new camera for Christmas and will do my best to try and get more photos on my page.

2 comments:

  1. Glad you are blogging again! And that you are getting your "self" back again!

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  2. Me too Terr, and glad to see YOU are blogging more too. Thanks, I got a long way to go, but I'm feeling like I'm in the right tunnel and can see a glimmer of light at the end.

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