Saturday, August 27, 2011

Acupuncturist says...

"No climbing for two weeks; if you go to yoga, absolutely no chattarangas." I went climbing twice this week, and after both sessions, my right arm was not happy, at all. Last Sunday, my right arm got very agitated during the class, especially while doing chattarangas. So the recommendation, of course, was to rest it - lay off the climbing, or modify the yoga pose (do a downward dog instead of a chattaranga). All that while she was needling my back and right arm.

When she came back to remove the first set of needles, I asked if I could at least belay if I couldn't climb. She said, "As long as your right arm doesn't hurt while you are belaying." Fine, I can deal with that for two weeks. In went the second set of needles, on the front side, and e-stim on my right arm.

When she came back to remove the second set of needles, she had a compromise for me: "If I kinesio tape you, you can either climb or do yoga, but not both." Wow - unexpected, but I wasn't going to turn that down. Tape me up! So I now have this lovely black tape on my right arm and part of my back. Kinesio tape is waterproof, so should last for about a week. She explained what it does, which I don't remember word for word, but I think the basic idea is it creates a space between your skin and the muscles below it, which somehow allows the healing process to take place faster. If it works, why not?



2 comments:

  1. Hope it works for you! I had k tape on once but I was pretty rough on it and it lasted just 3 days. :( But if it's good enough for Olympians its good enough for us to try!

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  2. It started coming off the next day when I showered! I got it to adhere again. Where were you taped, what was the injury? Do you think it helped?

    I went climbing on Sunday. It didn't feel any different. I didn't push it too much though. I ended up taking the tape off Tuesday morning, and climbing again that night.

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