swimming or water walking as excercise

[HerMajesty]

Starting a thread about the swimming pool as an altrnative to weight bearing excrcise. I realize since each of us has somewhat unique pathology compared to all the rest, some might have had good experiences and some bad, so all positive and negative feedback on what swimming did "for" or "to" you is welcome.
Personally my PN came from tarlov cysts at the S2 nerve roots so I did not have entrapment: PN but not PNE. I am post op from tarlov cyst surgery and have gained 80 pounds since 2009 due to immobility and meds. I really wish I had thought of swimming BEFORE surgery and not after, maybe I never would have gained so much weight. But instead I sat around thinking that after surgical recovery, everything would be peachy and I could take the weight off then. Well, now that I am well along in recovery and off half of my meds, I found that this is not the case. Muscle weakness and a large burden of extra weight to carry around has stymied my attempts to lose weight because I injure my knees and hips very easily with weight bearing excercise. Enter the swimming pool: I have been doing a half hour in the gym pool daily, swimming laps. when I get tired I do a lap on my back, and when my neighbor goes with me we just water - walk so that we can chat. Regardless I stay moving for a half hour per day. I have found that in my case, it doesn't just "not hurt me", it REDUCES my pudendal symptoms as well as leg pain.
So just throwing that out there as a possible excercise for other people trapped in an immobile lifestyle due to PN.

[nyt]

My hubby and I started swimming 4.5 years ago when I went out on disability. The first thing I tried was an exercise class for individuals with arthritis. I was the youngest "kid" in the class and could not do the water walking. I remember the individuals in the class where encouraging me to continue walking in the circle but after 2 times around I was getting such awful perineal and leg pain I had to stop. I think they thought I was a wimp but I really didn't care because I knew they didn't understand what was wrong with me. However, it was inspiring to see people walking to the pool with their walkers or canes. I still can't water walk in the forward direction without it flaring my legs and pelvic floor muscles. I just can't tolerate that much resistance. I do water walk backwards some. I tried aquatic therapy after my obturator decompression surgery but my legs absolutely can't tolerate the warm water because it makes my leg muscle spasm. Even though I only managed about 5 lessons before I had to stop I did learn some exercises to do in the water that I have incorporated into my water exercise program. I do swim laps but have to be very careful even doing that because it will flare everything from the waist down if I over due and don't take breaks every 25 or 50 yards for at least 30-60 seconds to slowly breathe and down train the muscles. Even gentle flutter kicks will flare my piriformis syndrome if I'm not extremely careful. I have a series of leg exercises I do in the water but I can only do 15 seconds each. I am quite limited in what I can do in the water but I know some exercise is better than none. My hubby and I swim twice a week and I have a home exercise routine I do the other 5 mornings. No matter how I feel I never miss exercising because I know the long term importance of exercising. So, when I'm having a bad morning I remind myself what the long term benefits of exercising are and get my butt in gear.

[janetm2]

Thanks for posting your experiences. I was privded an athritic class and water therapy place from my PTs. I was leaning towards starting with the therapy to see what they think would be good before trying a class and your info confirms it.
Janet

[Steedie]

Hello,

I have been swimming for ten months now and find that I feel relief for about an hour afterwards. I swim laps (forward crawl) for about fifteen minutes, very slowly, every other day. Sometimes if I swim as much as one extra lap, I will be laid up in bed for two to three days. It can be very frustrating if I miss counting and then feel guilty about the subsequent recuperation.

My gym has a pool for arthritis exercise that I use whenever possible. The warm water combined with the near-weightlessness feels great. If I swim in the outdoor pool with colder water (around 78 degrees F), I find that my muscles tend to cramp up. Another swimmer suggested using a buoy between my thighs while swimming laps, as she had used it with a knee injury. I think you need to be a pretty strong swimmer, as I couldn't quite get the hang of it!

I haven't tried the aerobics classes, as I don't see how I could do most of the movements.

Good luck!

- Steedie
Bi-lateral pudendal neuropathy, vaginal mesh removed July 2010

[hotblondee]

My PT suggested that I should try and get into a warm pool as much as possible to just walk around, float but no swimming. While my hubby and I were in Florida this winter I got into the pool as often as I could to just walk around. It felt great. I wish I could live in a water bubble!!! Against he advice from my PT I tried to swim. I quickly realized why she said no swimming. The stretching of tissues and muscles etc caused significant pain.