Exercises most relevant to ASPS patients

[Ivan]

I thought I'd start this topic so that people can share their experiences. I think this is the best spot for this discussion, since it's more related to lifestyle - not treatment. None of these will probably improve your survival chances, but they will make your life more enjoyable. I've had 5 thoracotomies, and when I am exercising or running - I do not remember about them. I don't feel anything that reminds me that they took place other than the fact that I am not running as fast as I would have been.

I can talk about lung surgery. There are two relevant parts to this.

1) Aerobic exercise. This is running, biking, swimming - anything that makes you sweat - to restore oxygen processing capacity. The proper term is VO2MAX - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VO2_max - which reflects your aerobic fitness. Having any lung procedure will LOWER it substantially. Having lung mets in general will lower it. It will NOT recover completely on it's own. If you want it back - you have to sweat it out and do some jogging. As you may notice, the formula for VO2MAX involves your body mass. Therefore, if you find yourself out of breath somewhat, then one of the ways to make it better is losing some extra weight, if you are packing any. In my opinion, every ASPS patient should do aerobic exercise because our disease slowly chews aways pieces of our lungs bit by bit. By exercising the lungs we can offset it to the best of our ability. Doing this also makes you feel better psychologically: you are doing something to fight the disease with you sweat and hard work. You may not be fighting ASPS itself, but you are fighting and offsetting the effect the bastard is having on your body.

2) Local muscle recovery. Everything is super tight after that big cut. Your chest, your shoulders, your scapula muscles may become injured (mine were). The scapula hurt so bad that it was sometimes worse than the big cut itself. For example, initially you have problems raising your arm above your shoulder. There are many stretches you can and should do to make it feel back to normal to get the full range of motion back.

The same goes for all the other muscles. If you had a resection in your leg, for example, the muscles around the area will be tight. You need to stretch them out and massage them vigorously after the healing has completed. Also possibly do some strengthening exercises too. This will help bring it back as close to normal as possible.

[Anders]

Good one ivan.
Sadly i cant run yet, still have some pain. But trying to get on the excercise bike every day for 30 mins.

[Ivan]

Good one ivan.
Sadly i cant run yet, still have some pain. But trying to get on the excercise bike every day for 30 mins.

What hurts - the incision site?