Meet Alex
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Alex went from not being able to walk, to running 10k.
Alex's roller coaster of health issues began with a seizure in 2017, just before his 23rd birthday. His brain was inflamed, and after a myriad of tests he was put on a steroid cycle. He thought the issue was cleared up, but one morning, he woke up with the inability to walk with his right leg. The biopsies – 7 samples from the lining of the hip bone – in an attempt to diagnose the issue, left him in extreme pain and still unable to walk. A few doctors told him he might not be able to walk normally again, and they believed that his right leg was paralyzed.
“I didn’t want to accept not walking. I was determined,” Alex said.
When he asked his neurologist and rheumatologist at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto what he could try for his pain, they both suggested massage therapy. He decided to give massage therapy a try, and after seeing an RMT twice a week for six weeks, he was surprised by the results.
“I could barely even pick up my foot at the beginning but the more I continued with massage therapy and worked on it through exercise, the more comfortable I felt,” he said.
Alex credits starting massage therapy treatment, combined with the remedial exercises his RMT prescribed him, as the factors that helped him get back to his regular activities.
“It was great to try a few exercises my RMT gave me and then at the next treatment hear her say how much my range of motion improved.”
Although the improvement was fairly gradual, Alex continued to set and achieve new and important goals with his RMT.
“Working with my RMT I went from starting to gain strength in my leg to being able to slowly push off on crutches, to the point now where I almost have 100% power along with my normal range of motion,” he said.
At first he hoped to walk half way to work and Uber or take a taxi the rest of the way. He then progressed to walking to work and getting a ride home. Then he was able to walk both ways to and from work. He continued to see progress from one massage therapy treatment to the next, and he found that others were noticing as well.
“The best thing for me was I started seeing an improvement,” Alex said. “I felt so much better and people would even start commenting that I was limping less than usual or walking better.”
Alex tried many things to reduce his pain and regain his ability to walk, and has visited an Athletic Therapist and a Manual Osteopathic Practitioner in the past. He has found the combination of massage therapy and exercise to be the most helpful for him, to the point where he’s almost back to the level he was at before his health issues began.
“Massage therapy and the ability to work on my right leg post-biopsy including exercises was the single greatest decision I made in recent memory,” Alex said. “It has allowed me to get back to my normal life and develop back the trust in my right leg.”
Doctors now know that Alex is battling an inflammatory disease called sarcoidosis, and he plans to continue with massage therapy throughout this treatment cycle to ensure that he can remain active and mobile. He wasn’t sure about starting massage therapy treatment at first, but now would recommend it to anyone looking for pain relief or improved mobility.
“At that point I would try anything for some pain relief and had benefits through work so I figured what do I have to lose?” Alex said. “It turns out it helped me to gain a lot.
Alex continues to see improvement, and continues to set ambitious goals for himself. He now runs between 7 and 10 kilometers three times a week, and has recently been able to start playing organized hockey again.