Kegels?!

I know what you're thinking.  Kegels? Who even does those anymore?  Well they aren't to make me a better pee-er, but apparently they do work a muscle down there that is attached to the spine.  And we are ALL ABOUT THE SPINE!  According to Good Doc, I'm to do 200 of them each day.  This doctor visit involved a lot of giggling.  I didn't know how to do kegels properly, so the man had to explain...  giggles.

In addition to kegels, I am to do 3 sets of 10 leg lifts twice per day.  Lying flat on my back, the leg lift sequence goes: fat tummy (giggles), kegel, suck in tummy, lift legs.  Cool.  Got it.

So that isn't much, but the focus is on some core muscles.  The Good Doc will add more next visit.

This visit, he ultrasounded my back and did some manual stretches.  He stretched out my hamstrings, which I've struggled to do on my own.  That felt awesome, so I said, "My husband has to do this for me at home, right?"

Good Doc:  "Absolutely! And you guys can probably barter some kind of payment!"

Me:  "Heck yeah! I gots skillz!"

Good Doc turned red... giggles!  "Well, I meant maybe you could cook him his favorite dinner!"

Me:  "Right.  Like I feel like standing in the kitchen!"  ...giggles.

The Good Doc also said that my pain is probably more from the bulginess of the disc running into the nerve, so I'm pretty much allowed to do anything that doesn't hurt.  Unfortunately, a lot of things still hurt me, like running, jumping, you know, the fun stuff.  I asked if it was cool for me to do yoga and go swimming, and he was all about that.

Sweet!  I have been doctor approved to attempt movement!  Yoga and swimming are good because I stick with things better when I have to leave the house to work out.  The same old thing day after day, week after week gets BORING!  (If you're into that, try P90X.  Blech.)  We have a really really super duper cheap membership to a local community center/gym because Hubs works for that city.  Unlike some other community centers, they don't charge extra for most classes like yoga and water bootcamp.  But really, I'm going to start slow with the swimming thing.  Well.  And yoga.  I'm not good at either.