Today I went in to the office for physical therapy. The Physical Therapist was very good, much different than the one sent by the home healthcare agency. Although i liked the PT from the home healthcare agency, I fired them because they bothered me too much. So I am continuing PT with the office associated with the surgeon's office, right next door. He massaged my leg very nicely and did some exercises. Also he told me that icing the inflammed part does not necessarily help. I heard that before, but with all the information and recommendations over the internet to ice/ice/ice and more ice the inflammed portion, I ordered ice packs and more ice packs. But what the PT said made sense. He said that while you can ice after a workout, icing actually will hinder the natural healing since the vessels shrink during that time, impeding the flow of the blood. And that made sense to me. So -- I'll just try to let my body do more healing and maybe (I said maybe) stop playing around with all sorts of anti-inflammatory pills and gummies, etc.
P.S. The real pain now is by my knee. I had trouble with the knee for years due to a high school basketball injury (some lovely girl threw me down during a game and the miniscus was torn and my mother took me to the doctor who took some of the torn cartilage out.) One orthopedic surgeon said, "That's what they did back then." I started to cry because it was a long time ago (like 60 years ago) and maybe surgeons learned better ways since then? Just asking...
OK, I am very, very, very reluctant to go ahead and get a knee replacement. I hear it's worse in recovery than a hip replacement and I'm about 4 weeks into it since the operation, still have pain (really by the knee) and can't walk too well. I'll wait a few weeks and hopefully somehow things will get better. I'll let all you good guys know. 🙂