questions I am afraid to ask ELIZA
Nov. 11th, 2008 09:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrian_turtleThese are questions I'd really like to ask my occupational therapist. I didn't realize the state licensing test for occupational therapists didn't include a Turing test--but who thinks of these things ahead of time? She asks good questions from a standard script, and gives advice based on keywords she hears in the answers. The problem is that she doesn't think. That's a big problem, though it's obviously not all of it. I wouldn't mind so much if her solution database were better suited to what I'm talking about. I get frustrated complaining about shoulder pain, when she makes suggestions about how I should change position to protect my lower back. We go round and round.
I say I'm afraid to ask her, rather than just thinking it would be a waste of time. Part of the problem is that all kinds of physio are expensive. My insurance does cover OT, but the co-payment works out to 1$/minute when I only have one appointment on that day. (There's a peculiar arrangement where the clinic only charges the co-pay once when I have PT and OT on the same day. It's like a bulk discount, and an extra incentive (in case anybody needed it) to schedule appointments back to back when possible. I'll be done with this valuable PT soon, and I can continue with OT another 2 weeks. If I want.) Spending 15 minutes on a useless tangent that ends with her recommending a $200 device she says will protect my lower back can hardly be good for the muscle tension in my neck and shoulders.
The other concern that makes me hesitate is that bad advice isn't just useless. When it comes to my health, useless advice is pretty well neutral. Bad advice actively makes things worse. Really bad advice makes things worse in subtle ways, and sounds so plausible (or has such strong advocates) that I try to follow it, hoping it will help me eventually. This is something that always worries me these days, but it worries me a *lot* more when getting advice from somebody with more authoritative status than personal credibility.
1) There is a problem that I tend to hunch my shoulders and duck my head when walking in heavy rain, even when I wear a raincoat and hat. This is no good for my bad shoulder, and I doubt it does much good for tension headaches either. I haven't used an umbrella for a long time, but I'm starting to wonder if a small one in my left hand might be the least bad option. (Left=good hand, bad shoulder.) When you carry an umbrella, do you relax your neck and shoulders? Or does the work of holding the umbrella up, and steady it against the wind, require you to tense your shoulders? I've seen minimalist umbrellas, made to fit in a large pocket or a small purse. Those are tempting because the light weight would seem to put minimal strain on the bad shoulder (and add minimal weight when I'm carrying it around before it starts raining.) Do the big ones provide much better protection from the rain? Are the slightly-bigger ones, that open with a spring, significantly less strain on the hands to open and close?
2) When I have overnight guests I'm not sleeping with, I generally offer the guests my bed and sleep on the couch. The couch doesn't fold out into a bed or anything like that, but it's a reasonably padded surface, 3" longer than I am. It's 3 thick cushions padding a wooden structure, not the upholstery kind of couch. I haven't slept on it with my shoulder in its current condition. The OT told me lots of things about the importance of proper body mechanics while sleeping (most of the recommendations seem designed to help the lower back. They're a bit of a nuisance, and I usually don't bother, even though they don't hurt.) It occurred to me I could buy a full size inflatable mattress for the money I'd pay for a couple of OT visits. I have no idea if it would be better for my shoulder than the couch. Or worse. It would probably be a better use of the money to take the T to Arisia or something. Any suggestions?
I say I'm afraid to ask her, rather than just thinking it would be a waste of time. Part of the problem is that all kinds of physio are expensive. My insurance does cover OT, but the co-payment works out to 1$/minute when I only have one appointment on that day. (There's a peculiar arrangement where the clinic only charges the co-pay once when I have PT and OT on the same day. It's like a bulk discount, and an extra incentive (in case anybody needed it) to schedule appointments back to back when possible. I'll be done with this valuable PT soon, and I can continue with OT another 2 weeks. If I want.) Spending 15 minutes on a useless tangent that ends with her recommending a $200 device she says will protect my lower back can hardly be good for the muscle tension in my neck and shoulders.
The other concern that makes me hesitate is that bad advice isn't just useless. When it comes to my health, useless advice is pretty well neutral. Bad advice actively makes things worse. Really bad advice makes things worse in subtle ways, and sounds so plausible (or has such strong advocates) that I try to follow it, hoping it will help me eventually. This is something that always worries me these days, but it worries me a *lot* more when getting advice from somebody with more authoritative status than personal credibility.
1) There is a problem that I tend to hunch my shoulders and duck my head when walking in heavy rain, even when I wear a raincoat and hat. This is no good for my bad shoulder, and I doubt it does much good for tension headaches either. I haven't used an umbrella for a long time, but I'm starting to wonder if a small one in my left hand might be the least bad option. (Left=good hand, bad shoulder.) When you carry an umbrella, do you relax your neck and shoulders? Or does the work of holding the umbrella up, and steady it against the wind, require you to tense your shoulders? I've seen minimalist umbrellas, made to fit in a large pocket or a small purse. Those are tempting because the light weight would seem to put minimal strain on the bad shoulder (and add minimal weight when I'm carrying it around before it starts raining.) Do the big ones provide much better protection from the rain? Are the slightly-bigger ones, that open with a spring, significantly less strain on the hands to open and close?
2) When I have overnight guests I'm not sleeping with, I generally offer the guests my bed and sleep on the couch. The couch doesn't fold out into a bed or anything like that, but it's a reasonably padded surface, 3" longer than I am. It's 3 thick cushions padding a wooden structure, not the upholstery kind of couch. I haven't slept on it with my shoulder in its current condition. The OT told me lots of things about the importance of proper body mechanics while sleeping (most of the recommendations seem designed to help the lower back. They're a bit of a nuisance, and I usually don't bother, even though they don't hurt.) It occurred to me I could buy a full size inflatable mattress for the money I'd pay for a couple of OT visits. I have no idea if it would be better for my shoulder than the couch. Or worse. It would probably be a better use of the money to take the T to Arisia or something. Any suggestions?
