The real ‘PT’ road to recovery and full strength via physical therapy

Our partners at GBMC are always sending us experts to educate us about the real life road to feeling better and, for anyone’s who has ever been sent to “PT” knows, it’s always about doing what the docs tell you. Here, physical therapist Ian Fischer gives Nestor an education on getting back to full strength and some good advice from the GBMC Physical Therapy Center at Owings Mills.

• Maryland Crab Cake Tour and Upcoming Events
  • Nestor Aparicio introduces the Maryland Crab Cake Tour, mentioning upcoming events in Essex, Timonium (Planet Fitness), Lexington Market, and Catonsville (Fishmonger’s Daughter).
  • He highlights partnerships with GBMC, Farnham and Dermer, and the Maryland Lottery.
  • Nestor shares his personal health journey, including finally getting a physical with Dr. Senussi, having a colonoscopy, and relying on physical therapy.
  • He expresses gratitude to GBMC for their support of both his health and the tour.
• Introduction to Physical Therapy and Personal Experiences
  • Nestor describes his first significant PT experience after a knee surgery in 2006, which did not go well initially and led to swelling, difficulty with crutches, and a long recovery.
  • He talks about how PT helped him return to an active life (running, sports, daily activities).
  • He praises physical therapists as “saints” who meet patients in pain and help them get “put back together again.”
• Phases of Physical Therapy and Pain Management
  • Ian Fischer explains that PT progresses in phases:
    • Early focus on pain and swelling management and restoring muscle balance.
    • Starting with isometric, low-level exercises, then advancing to isotonic and more dynamic work.
    • Gradual progression from open-chain to closed-chain exercises (more weight bearing and functional).
  • He notes that jumping too quickly into aggressive exercise can worsen pain and reduce patient compliance.
• Importance of Continuous Therapy and Daily Activities
  • Ian stresses that PT isn’t just what happens in the clinic; long‑term success requires patients to continue exercises at home.
  • Nestor describes how PT movements became part of his hot yoga and Planet Fitness routines.
  • They underline the role of good daily habits in staying strong and preventing future injuries, especially with aging.
• Specialized Therapy and Balance Issues
  • Ian shares that he works at GBMC Outpatient Physical Therapy in Owings Mills.
  • He treats a wide range of cases:
    • Orthopedic (hip/knee replacements, other joint issues)
    • Neurological (post‑stroke, Parkinson’s)
    • Balance and vestibular problems, including BPPV (benign paroxysmal positional vertigo).
  • Nestor talks about friends with hip and knee replacements, and how PT has been key for their recovery and quality of life.
• Challenges and Misconceptions About Physical Therapy
  • Nestor admits he once thought PT was “like a gym” and didn’t fully understand how targeted and scientific it is.
  • Ian clarifies that PT is individualized, based on the specific origin of pain and functional limitations.
  • They acknowledge common misconceptions and the need to educate people so they don’t fear or avoid PT.
• Personal Stories and Encouragement
  • Nestor shares stories about:
    • His own back issues (degenerative disc at L3–L4) and almost needing surgery.
    • His wife’s bone issues after bone marrow transplants.
    • Friends and even rock musician Nils Lofgren, who called PT a “life sentence” after hip replacements.
  • He repeatedly urges people: “Do what they tell you to do”—listen to doctors and physical therapists and follow the plan.
  • Ian encourages hesitant patients, emphasizing that PT is about reducing pain, restoring function, and getting back to what you love.
• The Role of PT in Daily Life and Habits
  • Ian explains core stabilization, proper bending and lifting (e.g., picking up laundry, pots and pans), and using the body’s own muscles as a “brace” instead of external braces.
  • They discuss problems like:
    • “Text neck” from constantly looking down at phones.
    • Poor sitting and sleeping postures that can silently cause or worsen pain.
  • Nestor gives examples of how bad glasses prescriptions and phone posture triggered neck issues that sent him toward PT.
• Impact on Quality of Life
  • Nestor describes going from being unable to pick up a pot or pan to being able to do household tasks and feel capable and mobile again.
  • He emphasizes that at his age, feeling good has become more important than just looking good.
  • Ian notes that the real motivation is returning to meaningful activities without limitation: sports, hobbies, family, and pain‑free daily living.
• Final Thoughts and Encouragement
  • Nestor expresses deep appreciation for Ian Fischer and other PTs who have helped him and his loved ones.
  • He frames PT as a pathway from fear and pain to confidence and function, if patients commit to the process.
  • Ian reinforces that each case is individually evaluated, with a tailored plan and home exercises, and that patients shouldn’t fear the first visit—it’s about assessment and relief, not a “marathon” of painful exercise.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Physical therapy, GBMC, knee surgery, back pain, muscle balance, pain management, core stabilization, daily activities, patient compliance, orthopedic diagnoses, neurological diagnoses, vestibular patients, BPPV, exercise progression, injury prevention.

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SPEAKERS

Speaker 1, Ian Fischer, Nestor Aparicio

Nestor Aparicio  00:01

Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T, am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We are Baltimore, positive, positively getting the Maryland crab cake tour out to you. We will be Pete Johns and Essex on Friday. I will have scratch also in the Maryland lottery. I have four different variety. It’s been a lot of fun here lately. Next week, we move to Planet Fitness in Timonium, which will be a part of this segment as well, and staying in shape and being physically fit. I’m gonna have my friend Dennis so Donovan out. We’re gonna talk some AI Captain trays. We have some stories to tell in Timonium the 13th, we’re back downtown and faints at Lexington market for the crab derby. It is Preakness week. We’ll be celebrating that, and the Yankees are in town as well. Then on the 21st out in Catonsville at the fishmonger’s daughter, all of it brought to you by the Maryland lottery. In conjunction with our partners at GBMC, I just walked the mile in their shoes a couple weeks ago, as well as our partners at Farnham and Dermer, they are the comfort guys for all things HVAC and plumbing, and they got me out of some hot water when I had a plumbing leak here a couple weeks ago. So my thanks to Zach Dermer, who also joined us for some sports talk this week. This is going to be a piece about general health. But more than that, I have some personal stories about physical therapy and those letters. PT, which is different than TP on the grocery list and PT, that’s paper towels, no physical therapy. Ian Fisher is here from our partners at the GBMC who keep us going. Ian, I want to tell you you’re joining me on the eve of my very first this is swear to God in 23 hours. Dr Senussi is going to meet me and be overwhelmed by me, no doubt, for my first physical. I’m 57 years old. I finally had my colonoscopy because Christina and the whole staff, Greg, everybody over GBMC, said, we’re going to make you healthier. We’re going to make Baltimore City, Baltimore County, everybody around the beltway, a little healthier. And I have not had a physical. I had not had a colonoscopy, so I couldn’t speak to that. But dude, PT, I’m ready for you, Doc, because, like, I have done knee surgeries. I have done problems with my back where I thought somebody was gonna have to cut on me over at GBMC, and that hasn’t happened. I’m a hot yoga enthusiast. I go to Planet Fitness, and I’m working out and doing all my things. But when somebody hears that, they have to go to PT after their procedure, or to avoid a procedure, or because they did something stupid, shoveling snow, or whatever it would be that brings people to you. You people are saints. I just want to say that and have put me back together again when I’ve literally been in tears, wearing a mask saying, Am I ever going to walk again? And somebody like you is like, we’re going to fix you. That’s what PT is. So as much as you don’t want to hear PT, there’s always somebody like you there, and you always meet with good cheer and meet people who are hurting and say, here this something might hurt a little bit more for a minute, but it’s going to get you stronger in the end. So I am a thrilled to talk to you.

Ian Fischer  03:03

Oh, great. Well, thank you, Nestor. It’s a pleasure to be with you this morning.

Nestor Aparicio  03:06

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Well, when people come to PT the first time, and I remember when I met, I’ll say Doctor Steve, because he knows who he is, who fixed me back in 2006 I had a knee surgery, not a GBMC, was a mistake, and I had a knee surgery that that did not go as well. It swelled more. I did not take well to crutches. I You can tell I’m a pretty active guy. I didn’t take well to just sit down and to all the things it did to me when I was 37 at the time, when this happened in the summer 2006 and it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, like try to get my knee back. And all these years later, I feel good about it. But from the minute you meet a physical therapist, wherever you are, where your doctor says you really should go, some some part of that word in physical therapy leads me to think that it’s I always thought when I walked in, I’m like, oh, it’s like a gym. But everybody in here is very focused on whatever that problem you’re having that’s causing you pain, disability, inability to even pick up pots and pans, which I had a few years ago, that somebody like there meet you wherever you are, and really get scientific about how to get you back to being your best self?

Speaker 1  04:24

Well, that’s very true. I mean, so there are different phases of one’s rehab and physical therapy. Like you mentioned, following a knee surgery, it’s not immediately going to obviously aggressive exercises. You have to respect the pain the individual’s having, because pain is inhibitory and can shut muscle off. So you’ve got to address the pain and the initial phases are often the building blocks, like with with regard to the knee

Nestor Aparicio  04:58

thunder Malaysia, as in. Example, you’re a doc, right? So they scraped the back of my kneecap at the time in 2006 they’re like, this is what happened to McCrary and why he can’t chase quarterbacks anymore. And I always kid him about that. But they’re like, when I woke up in the strap and they put me out in the little thing, when they the doc literally said to me, you’re probably not going to be able to run anymore, like, really, road race 10k now, I think I could, but like I woke up to, you know, exploratory surgery that kind of went in a direction of Yowza for me, having played a lot of tennis and caught as a catcher in baseball and banged around a lot like I was years just getting left and right back to normal, like where my left, the muscles had atrophied because I was a terrible patient, you know. And it wasn’t. It got in my head big time, and it made me think about my living and what I at that time, Todd heap, was a tight end. And, you know, I’m in the locker room with these guys, seeing players that had their careers taken away, and I had a summer where I just couldn’t do any of the things I wanted to do. And at 38 it was really hard for me to mentally accept that. So I think the part of the pain, the challenge, how much PT do I? What am I? This thing hurts like hell. I can’t even get to the kitchen to get coffee. It was the first time in my life I had experienced that. And I think the people like you that I met at the front door, I you know, I was a Hellion as a patient. And I always tell Christina that at GBMC, I’m a terrible patient for everybody, you know, I hate to be in pain. I hate to be limited, all of that, right?

Speaker 1  06:41

And that’s a good point, and that’s why so initially, it has a lot to do with managing the pain, swelling, restoring muscle balance to also assist in reducing the pain. You know, isometric, low level exercise, building up to more isotonic and aggressive things over time. If, if you try to go right to that, it’s going to lead to more pain, the individual is going to be less inclined to be compliant with the exercises. So it’s kind of a step by step progression, certainly after surgery, as the pain goes down, it allows the individual to tolerate more and go from what are called open chain exercises to closed chain exercises, where you’re controlling your body weight, but in a way that is tolerable, and then it becomes more motivating, because you can see the end game, what that could lead to you getting back to the activities that you’re most motivated to resume.

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Nestor Aparicio  07:40

Well, I’ll give an example. I had my appendix taken out 40 years ago. I’m 57 it was in May of 1986 it was during Chernobyl for you young kids out there, because I was so I was, I was a church home hospital where I was born that doesn’t exist anymore, over off the Hopkins campus in East Baltimore, and they cut me open. And you I could still, you know, I could show you my my scar, and they sent me home, and I couldn’t do a sit up for five years. And I probably got fat during that period of time, because I just, like, it just wasn’t like a thing 40 years ago where they’re like, Hey, dude, your belly is going to be this, and you need to do that. And, and I think about PT now, for like, my wife, who hasn’t had anything surgical done since she had her life saved twice with bone marrow transplants 12 years ago. But she’s had all sorts of bone issues and different things that have taken her to PT to bring back strength in her hamstring after she broke her foot, different things that atrophy in different parts of my body that I was 38 years old, not and covering athletes for a living as a journalist all of my adult life, before I understood, oh, I have knee surgery on my right knee. It’s really going to affect my left side and how I’m going to favor that, and I’m going to damage muscles on my left side, favoring it, and how out of whack and out of balance I’m going to get, and I don’t even get through the mental part of like it didn’t encumber me from doing my job or being able to pay my bills, and in some cases, and this is where I get into lawsuits with some of my attorney buddies, and different things that happen at workplaces, and all of it going into being a breadwinner and feeding your family that when you’re in pain, you can’t function that way, and it took me a long I never fell out of a tree and broke my arm. I never had any of that. I had my finger cut off when I was three, but I never had like PT and my adult advice to anyone. And by the way, Ian Fisher is here with GBMC on behalf of physical therapy and getting you better and making your best self before, after, during an injury strain, you hurt yourself in some way. Nels Lofgren of the E Street Band is a long buddy of mine from my old rock and roll days, and he was a gymnast as a young guy and as a rock star before he was in Bruce’s band. He used to do these. This trampoline jumps on stage with a guitar strapped to him. That was a little bit of an acrobatic circus trick, and later in life, both hips replaced, right? I’ve got friends with my buddy, Rick Vaughn just had his hip done. He’s going to come on and golfing buddies, people that were athletes like me. God bless me. If I ever have a hip or a knee replacement, don’t want any of that. Trying to avoid all of that at Planet Fitness and with folks like you who put Humpty, Dumpty back together again. But Nils Lofgren said to me, year before my knee surgery, he said this to me, after he had his hips done, and he still he’s out with Bruce tonight, jumping around like literally, it’s 70s, whatever years old he is right. He said to me, I had both hips done and his nose. Lofgren voice, he said, it’s a life sentence. PT, is a life sentence, is what he said to me. Said it’s for the rest of your life. I’m going to have to work on these hips in order to be in a band and do what I do, to jump on busses and get, you know, pick up my dog like literally, I remember him saying this to me in personal time, not even on the air, just in our friendship. He’s like, it’s a life sentence, dude, I’m doing PT, so I can get on tour, so I can go back and shake my ass and be a rock star, you know, literally. And I remember him telling me that about my knee at that time. And I’m a rock head Doc, I don’t listen. You know what I mean, like, and I should have done more. But I tell every person I know. I just had a friend that had a heart transplant, my dear friend, Eddie. La, I’m like, do what they tell you to do, do what the docs tell you, do what PT tells you. So Ian, I just want to say to you, I am your biggest advocate for that, that you really are there to get these people back on stage, whatever their stage is.

Speaker 1  11:40

Oh, well, thank you very much. And like you said, I mean a large component. So with physical therapy, there’s the in clinic component, but ideally, upon discontinuation, upon discharge, the individual would have a core set of exercises and activities to continue to to perform independently, to see continued future gains over time. So like you said, it is it doesn’t just end when the physical therapy in the clinic ends. Ideally, it would continue at home and over time to see continued improvement.

Nestor Aparicio  12:15

So when you see a patient and meet them where they are, give everybody a little bit of your background, primarily what you do these days at GBMC, because there’s, I mean, you have a whole team of people. And every PT I’ve ever walked into that have saved me, literally, there was a young lady I never really even met her. She had a mask on her face during the plague, when my back blew out from sitting here and damaging my so as and then, you know, moi, David Knoll got me the stand desk so that the desk levitates when I go and I don’t have to sit here and sit 19 hours a day and do and do this that I can stand and make my hips better and have a stand mat. But so much of this, and I just do this for for show, but it really is about looking down on your phone and screwing up your neck. It’s about habits. It’s about me sleeping. I had Dr Steve, my chiropractor, on last week. He told me, for 25 years, don’t sleep on your stomach, dude, stop doing that. Put a tennis ball. Do whatever you need to do. So at 57 not only my hot yoga, my planet fitness, the physical therapist that I’ve had on my bat phone for years, massage, all chiropractic, all of the things that make me be able to do what I can do. And I don’t do much, dude, I sit here and talk to people like you, but when you hurt your back and you can’t do anything anymore, whatever the therapy is that you tell people to do to take that home and ingrain it into their life in some way, so that the demons of my bad psoas and my l3 and l4 don’t come back to me. I just take everything y’all do as gospel, because the girl that fixed me five years ago, I never even saw her face because we both had masks on. But everything she had me do in PT bird dogging and and backing my lower back was a real problem. All of it was baked into what I would need to do in a gym at Planet Fitness, in my hot yoga studio, they were really yoga moves. Honestly, they were strengthening moves that when put to the right sting music and to the right lighting and in a class setting, can be things that I learned in a physical therapy place, even with my knee and trying to strengthen my quads, and that they need to be fun, because you need to be doing them more more often than that, especially as you get older. And I can say that as I’m healthy as I’ve ever been, but everything I do, I hear my physical therapist and my yoga instructor speak to me in a way that like I need to stay strong so I can do what I do and what I love to do.

Speaker 1  14:54

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Right? That’s a great point. So like you said, so I’m out in Owings Mills at. Uh, GBMC, outpatient physical therapy in Owings Mills and at our site, you know, we see a wide variety of diagnoses, orthopedic diagnoses like you’re mentioning, you know, status, post hip knee replacement, as well as numerous other orthopedic diagnoses, also neurological diagnoses like status, post stroke, Parkinson’s disease, among others. I do also take a special interest in balance patients, vestibular patients, as an example, individuals with BPPV that’s benign proximal positional vertigo that has to do with the crystals within the inner ear and how that can cause position dependent vertigo. So we see a lot of different diagnoses. Wow. I mean,

Nestor Aparicio  15:56

that’s, you know, some of those things you mentioned are real heavy for me in my space at my age, and I’ve been doing this 35 years, I don’t know that there’s a time in my life ever where one of my friends isn’t in some sort of recovery for a hip or a knee replacement. And as much as I talk to Luke all the time about injury reports with baseball and Tommy John surgery and those typical sports injuries that happen so many people I know, male, female, you didn’t have to have been a boxer or a golfer or a tennis player, pickleball. Oh my god, pickleball keeping you all in business. I think, right. You know with injuries that the hip and knee replacement. I know when they told me I was, I was a candidate for back surgery about four years ago. I’m like, I’m going to do every single thing and listen to every Ian Fisher that has ever told me what I need to be doing to strengthen my core so that I can pick up pots and pans so like things, like literally pulling things out of the trunk of my car, reaching down and getting a pot or a pan reaching down to get laundry out of the washer or the dryer, whatever that muscle was no bueno. And now I’ve moved back to an area where I feel like I could go surf again, that I could do things that I didn’t feel mobile enough to do years ago. I feel like I could shoot some baskets. I feel like I could play tennis. I’m not going to whack my back out with a golf club or with a baseball bat, but I feel like I’ve eluded back surgery for now, but the knee thing and the hip thing maybe later in life, and that would be my worst nightmare. Is be like, Oh, you need a knee or a hip, but I have a Rolodex of people that I give encouragement, even though I’m not a survivor of those things. And saying so many of my friends tell me, after they do it, it was the best thing they’ve ever done. And I know how hard it is and how much pain they’re in, because I’ve lived through all of this through friendships, and I have a friend right now that, you know, I’ve been kid. Rick Vaughn, who had a replacement couple weeks ago, couldn’t come on the show. He’s like, I’m too much pain. I’m a couple days out. I’m like, Dude, this is going to be the best thing. And I I just say that on experience for people like you and people that have done it, but give me a little encouragement as somebody who’s 5758 that I’ve been through some Humpty Dumpty here, Ian, that if I have to come see you out knowings Mills, in that way, that you can get people back to living a good life. Because I think that’s the biggest that was my fear with my back, oh my god, six months, I’m going to lose my business. How am I going to be able to work? What am I? And I, I’ve gone at it a different way, but I, I think if I get an MRI, you’d still look at me and say, at some point, dude, that backs going to need, you’re going to need six months in an E at some point, maybe.

Speaker 1  18:44

Well, possibly. But I will say you sound like an ideal patient, an individual that really takes advantage of the physical therapy they’ve received and then is applying it to your daily activities.

Nestor Aparicio  18:59

Degenerative Disc lower back, l3, l4 is where I was. So that’s when they were like, we might need to adjust this with some incisions and some invasive and I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, not yet.

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Speaker 1  19:12

Sounds like you’ve probably been through some extensive core abdominal stabilization training.

Nestor Aparicio  19:19

I’m on a hot yoga mat five days a week, doing all sorts of Gumby stuff that four years ago would have I couldn’t pick up a pot in the pan. So I’m, I’m a good candidate to be talking PT with you, because the graduation part to me was moving to the planet fitness and to the yoga side of graduating and hoping not to come back, but understanding like I hope to live a long time at some point I’m gonna I’m gonna be in PT again. I’m something’s gonna go wrong, and I’m gonna need you, but psychologically, knowing, like those first couple times I come and see somebody like you, it, it’s tough man, right?

Speaker 1  19:54

And so the purpose of the physical therapy is to establish the motor plans of. Uh, the stabilization skills in different positions, going from lying to sitting to standing, quadruped, more dynamic movements, but ultimately, and ideally, incorporating those principles with your daily activities. So things at home, when you like you mentioned, when you go to bend down to pick, say, a laundry basket up, you would draw your navel in to increase your intra abdominal pressure to stabilize your spine. So effectively, you’re using your muscles to brace and protect your back, those discs, as opposed to a fabric brace, which could do the same, but could also promote weakness of your muscles. So ideally, you’ll be doing what you’re doing, utilizing your stabilization skills functionally throughout your day with your daily activities, recreational activities. So not only are you protecting yourself from a future episode, but you’re also strengthening your core as you perform your daily activities. And of course, if there’s ever, you know, a regression where an individual like yourself has an exacerbation of your symptoms, one could always revisit physical therapy, you know, to calm that down, build back up, and then lead to independent management again, successfully. Like it sounds like you’re currently doing

Nestor Aparicio  21:23

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well, I would say, more than anything. Ian Fisher’s here from GBMC, you know, we support them. They support us. Here locally, we were out for walk a mile in the shoes. We’re going to talk about some really big numbers with that a couple weeks ago as well, to help the Safe program over there, which is something we don’t love talking about. We have to talk about around here. But PT is something you know, my wife said probably three episodes since she had her bone marrow transplant, I’ve had an episode in the last five years where I’ve had to come and sort of graduate out. I think my biggest thing is do what they tell you to do. But more than that, you guys are really magical about being able that you can get to the other side of whatever the issue is from the day you walk in there and whatever situation you’re in, that if you do listen, you do follow through, and you do your homework, and you take on good habits, like not sleeping on your stomach like a knucklehead, you can actually get back to full movement. And you know, even in the last six months, I had Dr Steve, my chiropractor, on a couple weeks ago, just talking about I had a had a magical massage at Machu Picchu last month. But I have had such the worst habit of my neck with the phone, and I’ve just got to cut it out, because it’s screwing me up, and I don’t want to see you. But I do know that, like good habits. When people go home and thinking about, like, when I broke my back, I’m like, all I’ve been doing Sydney, or how did I get hurt? Well, dude, all you were doing was sitting there. That’s how you got hurt, right? And as you get older, that’s a little harder to comprehend, especially if you were young and active, the way I once was, when I was a young guy like you. Ian, you know,

Speaker 1  23:02

well, you’re right. And I know you go back to like with the phone, because we see that all the time, particularly in our waiting room with family members of patients, especially younger individuals, where there’ll be what’s what I’ve seen, the extreme from individuals just like this, looking straight down

Nestor Aparicio  23:19

for Oh, dude, I get on airplanes, and it’s unbelievable how I see the top of everybody’s head when I get on an airplane, even going in the movie theater. The other day, I go into movie theater, everybody’s heads

Speaker 1  23:29

down, literally myself. I would not be able to tolerate that. If I’m going to be on my phone for more than 30 seconds, I really need to have it at eye level, or pretty close to that, in order to have my neck in a neutral position to allow the muscles to be less tense and relaxed, I just wouldn’t be able to tolerate what some of the younger individuals are tolerating. But can lead to, you

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Nestor Aparicio  23:51

know, what screwed me up was glasses and having these are, these are my readers, if that completely would have put me into PT, and I’d have been visiting you out knowings Mills or the Towson branch, because I’m more in Towson, near GBMC, but it completely screwed my neck up looking at my phone using my whatever progressive lenses. It injured me. I got injured when my prescription, this is old guy ish, I got injured when my prescription went bad on my glasses, and I was using my neck in a different way on what I do all day, which is look at a zoom lens and look at people. And, you know, I would just say for me, the, you know, the whole notion that we would that you could get hurt by having your prescription go bad, and I would wind up in PT, it sounds like falling on ice or something. You know, I hurt myself playing billiards or something. But there’s all sorts of ways you can get hurt, and I’m trying to avoid you, but I’m also trying to educate people that if they have to go to PT, damn it, do it, because it will help you. You will get stronger. Again and and then the other part is listening to you when you go home, that if I’m in there for my neck and I’m doing this all day and I have the wrong prescription, it took me a couple of months to figure out why I was so screwed up, right?

Speaker 1  25:13

And that’s that’s the reality. Because most individuals, if they’re going to physical therapy, they’re going two or three days a week, you’ve got to consider the remainder of the week what one is doing at home, if they’re just being good and doing what they need to do those two days, it’s going to there’s going to be a limit to the benefit to that. It’s got to be something that one commits to on a daily basis and incorporates throughout their daily life.

Nestor Aparicio  25:39

Funniest story, and I’ll leave you with this, because I am visiting GBMC, I’m having my honest to God, first checkup of my marriage. I’ve been married 23 years. For 23 years, my wife’s like you should go get a checkup now my wife, who’s lived in hospitals, had two bone marrow transplants leukemia. So like, I do everything I can do to avoid my colonoscopy, as was exampled six months ago, or PT, which, you know, I recommend if you need it, but I try to avoid it for all things like that. But I’m actually going to the doctor. But about 10 years ago, I was having a problem with my wrists, and I thought it was my cell phone and the texting generation of being a guy my age, and I met a doctor, not a GBMC, but a very qualified doctor, I might say. And it was not a checkup, it was I’m hurt, and now I need a doctor, right? Which is what we do, right? Which is what I’m not doing this week. I’m avoiding that, so Greg and Christine will be happy with me for that. So I’m actually getting my real checkup. I hope I’m okay, I think. And I know they’re gonna stick me with needles, and I’m such a sissy. Like, it’s ridiculous. What a sissy I am. But I went to this doctor, and he says to me, by the way, Ian Fisher’s here from GBMC. He’s gonna fix you with PT up in Owings Mills. And he said to me, he looked at me, and he must have been a genius, because he’s like, how do you sleep? And I’m like, I sleep like this. He’s like, you’re hurting your arm sleeping. He gave me a prescription for this thing that made me look like my buddy, Danny Wiseman, when he put the thing on when he bowls or Springsteen has one of those when he plays. He has like, a wrist thing. You’re the doctor. You tell me the wrist thing that stabilizes your wrist. And he said, I want you to wear this when you go to bed and your pain will go away. And I’m like, dude’s a quack. I don’t even know what he’s talking about, sleeping. What does he mean sleeping? And damn if I didn’t catch myself back when I slept on my stomach like an idiot before I fixed myself and I fetal position somehow that I would like, completely trap my arm, lock all the blood from my arm, and the next day I would be numb to my elbow. And we’re trying my chiropractor, we’re all trying to figure this out, and the doctor’s like, you’re sleeping on it. And I told him he was nuts, and he wasn’t. He was completely right. So from this point forward, I’ve told you, I’ve got rock stars who’ve had PT, I’ve not listened to my physical therapist and had to go back back when I was young. I’ve not had doctor’s appointments. I’ve rolled the dice with my health, and I’m trying to be better than that, Doc. So am I doing

Speaker 1  28:15

8

a good job? It sounds like you’ve turned a corner and have the right mindset. So I I support everything the wrong

Nestor Aparicio  28:22

mindset before, you know, I mean, we’re really it’s just, it’s just about getting older and smarter or trying

Speaker 1  28:29

to sounds like you’re heading in the right

Nestor Aparicio  28:32

direction, and tell everybody what I could tell them, which is, when someone you’re so tomorrow, if I go and Doctor Sanusi says you need physical therapy for this little neck thing you have that I shouldn’t fear you, that I should come in and I should calmly listen to you and do what you tell me to do. Is that good?

8

Speaker 1  28:52

Yeah, absolutely right. So if someone would be coming in for neck pain or some type of cervical diagnosis, they may have the misconception that they’re going to be put through a marathon of different activities, but really the initial visit is the evaluation history, taking seeing what provokes the pain, what makes the pain feel better, evaluation measurements of range of motion, strength, special testing to see really what is the origin of the pain? Is it neuropathic pain? Is it muscular in nature? Formulating a individualized treatment plan, because each individual is different. One person with neck pain could be discogenic in nature. Someone else could be more muscular with trigger points in their, say, their upper trapezius. So each case is different. You’ve got to treat each individually to their impairments, and you know, a treatment plan specific to them, and including home exercises, so something that they can do on a daily basis, but they shouldn’t. Fear that at all, because it’s ultimately it is to reduce their pain, improve mobility and any other deficits or impairments that are present.

Nestor Aparicio  30:11

I can get my laundry out of the washer now and put it in the dryer and it doesn’t hurt. I can take the heaviest pots and pans and reach down and actually put them away the way my wife likes them put away, right? And I things that I know I couldn’t have done five years ago at 52 I can now do it 57 and it’s because I listen to people like you and because you all care, and get people in and find a lot of people in a state of that hurts like hell, and getting them the couple months later, saying, Hey, I feel good again. I can do the pots and pans. I can do the dishes. I can pick up my grandson. I can do things that I don’t have a grandson, but if I did, I could pick him up about that. I can pick up my kitty cat, all eight pounds of her, nine feet

Speaker 1  30:54

too much, right? The daily activities. But more motivating are the things you enjoy. Getting back to doing those without limitation should be the motivating factor, and just being in less or no pain. So why one would should be eager to go to physical therapy and listen to

Nestor Aparicio  31:11

people like Ian Fisher from GBMC, when you do get that little ticket and the doctor says you might want to get some PT for this, we can get you back to feeling good. I can promise you they can get you back to feeling good at GBMC. Ian, thanks for coming on, man, fist bump to you. And I would say this to you and every other doctor I’ve ever met, not too much. I don’t need to see you too often, and but if I do see you, I would have the confidence level to feel like I could get back I was this close last year until I figured out was my vision. But I think I’ve got that back together again. And thank so I’m going out. I’m doing the show next week. So we’re doing the crab cake tour. Is presented by GBMC, and conjunction with our partners at at the Maryland lottery and foreign and Dermer that I get to wear my fun Planet Fitness hat, my new year’s hat. Next week, we’re going to be at Planet Fitness and Timonium on the seventh, which will keep me away from the GBMC PT department at Ian Fisher as well, but not too much at playing if it is just enough to get me where I’m right I don’t need to. I mean, I want to look good on the beach and all that at my age, but it’s so much more important to feel good than to look good at this point. So at least I feel good. And I did Chase I looked okay today. My thanks to everybody at GBMC for sponsoring our Maryland crab cake tour. We are at Pizza John’s in Essex, eating all the things that will also help me avoid. PT, good things like french fries and gravy and cheese steaks and pizza. And we’re also going to be at Planet Fitness on the seventh, 13th of Fayette Lee’s at Lexington market, doing the crab Derby in advance of the Preakness. We’ll be joined by Ivan Bates that day. Luke’s coming down the Yankees are in town. That’ll be a great one. Then on the 21st we’re going to Celebrate good times in the opening of the fishmonger’s daughter in Catonsville. All of it brought to you by the Maryland lottery. GB, MC and our partners at Farnham and Durham. They are the comfort guys. I am Nestor. We are wnsd. Am 1570 Towson, Baltimore. I feel better after all that. PT, we just did. We’re Baltimore positive. Stay with us.