This post is about my first hand experience with the use of a "Theragun" for my accident induced health and pain problems.
What had happened to me? What issues am I tackling by the use of a theragun?
16 years ago I had a motorcycle accident and I don't want to go too deep into all the things that followed this incident and what all got busted just rather a little niche that is still very relevant to me in terms of well being.
Due to many of the issues that I contracted from this accident are malposition and poor posture muscle pains that I suffer from.
None of the therapeutic approaches like anesthetic meds, pain killers, physical therapy and massages, including fascias massages to mobilize glued together fascias muscle tissue could give me adequate pain relief not to mention helping me to work on the root causes of this.
By root causes I mean correcting the malposition I slip into with certain motion sequences or rest positions when standing, sitting or lying down.
I cannot change some of the static changes that happened to my body with and after the accident for the most part though. Corrective surgery was often looked at as possibility to better the situation but it involved to many high risks. Risks that I wasn't willing to take especially after I had many infection phases, some even reaching into the nearby bones of affected areas. Once you're suffer such an osteomyelitis your confronted with pretty radical invasive therapeutic concepts like amputations for instance.
So I'm very cautious to go down such a road. Specifically limb lengthening of my left leg in the femur section was a thing that I've considered many times. My left leg, that had the most extensive damage from the accident, including ruptured nerves, extensive muscle damage, a femur bone that had basically got smashed between the car I hit and my motorcycle, it looked like the femur had exploded into many fragments, that luckily grew together again, in an somewhat wild structure, also by the help of an titan femur-nail that's still in there btw. All this didn't leave the trauma specialist with many options in "fixing" this leg while at the same time trying to safe my life as I was getting unstable again and again during this operation, so they had to use a shorter femur-nail to give all the bone fragments a chance to connect with each other again during the healing phase after the operation. So I was left with a almost 8 cm shorter left leg and of course lengthening this femur bone again was almost on top of the possible things I could go after to better the situation. Especially because it was clear that this shorter left leg would ad hoc but even more so over time, lead into a whoe host of malposition problems all with a high likelihood of causing other secondary issues on top while all these symptoms have the potential to cause a lot of pain naturally.
Part of these issues were that my muscle tissue cramped often and would harden so hefty that even the physical therapist and different massage therapists were unable to loosen these areas a little. I tried really a lot of stuff, including osteopathic therapies, relaxation and meditation techniques, almost every analgesic and muscle relaxant, training and so on but as soon as I walk a few steps with that short leg the muscles start to close up again and feel like concrete to the touch. I had some success using these fascias rolls. but they couldn't get deep enough into the tissue it seems to have adequate positive effects.
I started to accept this as another aspect of my new "normals" that I've had a bunch of in the last 16 years since the motorcycle accident.
Joe Rogan talks about a "Theragun"...
Then I listened in to the JRE podcast #1542 with Cameron Hanes where Joe talked about the use of a theragun and that he even at times told the physical therapists and massage therapists that worked on him to "just use the theragun". He explained what it does and how it works and he had explained this to his therapists.
It's simply impossible for a therapist to apply such high frequency motion onto and into muscle tissue with the use of such a tool.
I had never before heard about these tools but after I had heard this I checked out the market for these things and learned a little about the therapies they are used for and how the inventor came to think about such tools.
"After a traumatic motorcycle accident, our founder Dr. Jason Wersland searches for a solution to his debilitating pain. When nothing on the market helps, he designs a makeshift tool that works, unknowingly creating the first Theragun"
With everything that seems to have a big market quickly a lot of knock off theraguns and alternative products came on the market. You'll be overwhelmed about the literally hundreds of choices you can make while your in the market for such a tool.
I decided to buy an not so expensive model that had adequate ratings though. I was not willing to pay 500, 800 or even over 1200 USD for such an tool not knowing if it would work the same wonders on me like it did on many others.
I've ordered my theragun on Amazon and I had it in hand a day after I ordered.
I read a little in the user manual, which was a little challenge because the German and the English chapters in the user manual had awful translations and errors in them but you get the picture rather quickly after playing a little with the theragun.
It basically has an power on/of button, an start button that sets the gun in motion and an plus and minus button were you can vary the frequency of the operation. That's it.
The first charging of the device should be 6 hours they write and mine came pre-charged so I could start playing with it a little right out of the box.
After the first 6 hour charge I put the tool, that basically feels like a little cordless screwdriver, to work on my troubled right hip, my right leg, the lower back region and my shoulders. I tried different knobs you can place on it but for the most part I used the hard foam ball. I knew from countless physical therapy and massage sessions what troubles areas must be worked and started without much pressure in the basic frequency. I then upped the frequency gradually and felt on the spot that this little apparatus blew my hardened muscle tissues away. Some after shortly working them with the theragun with gentle pressure some with some more pressure applied and high frequency set on the gun.
I was stunned by the strain relief that happened almost instantly in the areas that annoyed me the most and that were so hard to loosen up even for the most experienced massage therapists or physical therapists.
I then moved on to the spots that I already had given up on, were I accepted the "concrete muscle areas" as "it is what it is" stuff. Working these areas in the lower back and in the inner side of my upper leg muscles took a few seconds longer to loosen these up and it hurt a little to work these spots but the effect again was baffling me. The theragun changed the tight and somewhat, from constantly being contracted, shortened muscles to a loosened but still firm tissue in the matter of seconds or overall in minutes for larger areas. I moved the theragun along these areas while applying different levels of pressure, just how it felt right. That's the best thing about using the theragun on yourself by yourself. You can adjust for the needed frequency and pressure perfectly!
Now, a few day in since owning this device and using it daily a couple of times I must say it's the best piece of equipment I've bought in a long time!
I can wholeheartedly recommend it not only for the chronic ill like me, but surely for people that are working out, running or that are doing any other body challenging activities.
Looking at this tool and the good it would have done for me even long before the accident while I was active with my sport activities made me smile. My regular days back then started at 4:00 in the morning with a 5 mile run, with our four dogs, before I hit the shower and rode to work. In the late afternoon or evening I then took the dogs out again and hopped on my mountain bike for a 10-15 mile ride and every other day I would use our own little workout room in the house to pump some iron. If work didn't allow for any workout, which happened on a regular basis I doubled my efforts on the following days. I wish I would have had an theragun back then already because I pushed myself hard in all that I did back then. It would have been nice to speed up the recovery a little after runs, rides and workouts.
Maybe you wanna checkout devices like that? If you're considering to buy one of these check out this link (Amazon affiliate link, I would get a little percentage of what is sold via using this link) if you like the theragun that I've selected for myself and my wife.
This is what I have ordered:
Another link to the same product: https://amzn.to/3ld9Kow
So, what do you think about this? Do you have some of the symptoms, issues I've written about here? Do you have similar issues and maybe other therapies that work good for you? Are you interested in trying one of these "Theraguns"?
Please let me know in the comments!
Cheers Lucky!