I used to sleep face down.
This used to be the normal way I slept, with my face at the edge of the bed in order to get the maximum exposure to the air in the room. I have not been able to do this since my event. I tried this past weekend and managed to get on my stomach by rolling over my affected arm. Due to the spasticity in my pectoral and bicep muscles the arm was attempting to burrow under my body. I lasted for all of 5 minutes before I gave up.
Trying to roll over my good arm to my stomach doesn't work because my affected arm gets under my body before I can complete the roll.
I changed this now to grasp one of the spindles at the head of the bed. It takes about 5 minutes to force open my hand and get it around the spindle before my wrist turns down and slips my fingers off. The arm is then bent at a right angle above my head. This really keeps my pectoralis stretched out. The bicep is contracted but the pec needs more work, I don't worry about the curled fingers.
The other thing I try sometimes is to put a pillow on the floor at the left side of the bed. I can then lay on my stomach with the left arm dangling in a fist on the pillow. I can't lift my arm up except by rolling on my back.
This is obviously something you should be getting from your therapists so don't try this without such permission.
The things we do to be comfortable and help ourselves -- I wonder if the therapists know how hard we try.
ReplyDeleteNot really because they are trained in facilitating functional movement and since functional movement for those of us with lots of dead brain doesn't work. We have to go out on our own and come up with our own therapy protocols. If case studies were written up and available this would become very obvious that the existing stroke rehab only works for those who need to recover the penumbra or bleed drainage damage. Those of us with dead brain are screwed.
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