A boy and his knee
This morning, precisely three months — THREE MONTHS! — since I had my right knee totally replaced, Dr. Connell gave me the green light to quit physical therapy and get back on the tennis court. Doubles OK now, singles when you’re feeling up to it.
THREE MONTHS!!!
Before I go further, I must issue a gigantic caveat: Your Mileage May Vary. Indeed, your mileage almost certainly will vary. I am what the medical profession calls an outlier — a statistic at the far end of the bell curve. I’m an outlier in a good way, thanks be to the healing gods, but Dr. Connell makes it clear that only 10% or so enjoy this miracle recovery.
Not to brag. Luck is no small factor here. But there’s more.
All the studies say you do better in surgery if you’re in shape, and I try to stay in shape. I have a gym membership. I shoot for some sort of physical activity every day. Most weeks I’m successful 5 or 6 days out of 7.
Furthermore, I’m a good candidate for surgery. I am not making this up. They’ve developed a profile that adds up a bunch of factors such as physical condition, mental attitude, pain tolerance, gender (right, gender — on balance, males apparently have better surgical outcomes than females) — and I fit the profile to a T. My past surgical outcomes have been good to great.
And one other thing.
Prior to surgery, I had two sessions of massage and stretching with James Graffenberg, a licensed massage therapist and follower of a modality known as Active Isolated Stretching or A.I.S., about which more presently. One session was three days prior to surgery; the other was 24 hours prior.
I’ve been going to James since, many years earlier, he performed a miracle. I was doubled over with back pain — could barely walk — and James said he could fix it in three sessions. He fixed it in two.
I don’t go often though. James is a massage therapist, remember; what he does isn’t reimbursed and, at $290 for two hours, it isn’t cheap. Physical therapy is reimbursed and PT is terrific too. PT has similarly saved my cookies on more than one occasion. These days, I usually take my aches and pains to PT.
Not prior to surgery though. Deep massage and stretching loosens and warms the muscles, leading to a better surgical outcome. As James says, “It’s easier to cut, so the surgeon doesn’t have to cut as much.”
James’s theory makes sense to me but I don’t know whether it’s right or wrong. No studies back it up, to my knowledge. However, the philosopher William James, in his case for the existence of God, argued that, if you pray and God exists, you do yourself good for Eternity; and if you’re wrong, well, you aren’t really out much. On that theory, I figured, what the heck: If James is right, I get a better outcome; and if he’s wrong, well, I’m out $580 but I still get two great massages.
Flash forward to today. I have given James’s contact info to both Dr. Connell, who doesn’t seem very interested, and Beth Ann the PT, who does. I’ve also given Beth Ann’s contact info to James. If A.I.S. really does have value, shouldn’t organized medicine be aware of it?
Well, looks like organized medicine now is.
Beth Ann has a long phone conversation with James. She is aware of similar stretch modalities, but this time it’s different. She now has a patient (me) who is a poster child for total knee recovery, and who got stretched prior to surgery. She’s planning to meet with James, see what’s in his bag of tricks.
This morning, at our final PT session, Beth Ann recounted all this. She was quick to note that, despite my terrific recovery, everything is anecdotal at this point: One great outcome doth not a modality make. But she is now curious and open to the possibility that A.I.S. might speed surgical recovery — to the point of maybe recommending A.I.S. to an upcoming knee-replacement candidate. If it helps, well … might controlled studies lie ahead?
I’ve continued going to James post-surgery, despite the expense. He claims A.I.S. will speed my recovery too, and who’s to say it hasn’t?
Besides, I DO love a good massage.
P.S. The Active Isolated Stretching guru is named Aaron Mattes. He has a clinic in Sarasota FL (http://stretchingusa.com) and practitioners scattered about the country. If you live outside the D.C. area, you may be able to find an A.I.S. practitioner locally by contacting the Mattes clinic.
Inside the Washington area, I can’t say enough good things about James Graffenberg. His website is http://stretchingtheworld.com. He practices in the medical building at 4701 Randolph Road, Suite G-1, Rockville, MD 20852. His phone is 301-770-9199 and his email is jgraffenberg@yahoo.com.