Day 3 at Raleigh Orthpedics was slightly shorter today since they don’t have as many patients on Wednesdays. Today I continued to shadow Mr. Meszler. There were a lot of ACL injuries again today. With all of the injuries and hearing how the patients wish they were able to run, it made me so thankful to be able to run injury-free (knock on wood!). One lady came in, and she is still recovering from ACL surgery that she had a year ago! She is still only able to run 1 mile every couple of days.

The most exciting thing I did today was entering patient mobility into the computer for two of his patients. Mr. Meszler has a really cool machine that tests the patient’s strength. Every time the patient come for a PT session, he tests their strength to access their progress. The machine is very accurate and a great way to find specific weak points to work on.

There was more dry needling today. The patient was wincing and holding herself back from screaming from the dry needling. However, she reminded herself of how much better she feels from the dry needling which helped her get through the procedure.

This morning a young girl (around 12 years old) came in with knee pain. It was great to see a young patient today since I have only seen older people while I’ve been here. I learned about how her flat foot contributes to her knee pain. The PT suggested that she get Superfeet to support her feet and decrease her knee pain.

I got to see a patient that has children at CA! I will keep the name anonymous to keep patient privacy. The patient had a very interesting case. He got knee replacements in both knees a year ago. After he started doing physical therapy, only one knee began to heal. Eventually, he found out that the plate inside of the knee was inserted incorrectly, so he had to get surgery again 2 weeks ago. To make matters even worse, once he got his 2nd surgery, his knee gushed blood a few hours post surgery. He had to stay in the hospital bed for 8 days! He was so upset that he wasn’t allowed to get out of bed. Considering all he has been through, his knee looked good today.