Session One

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect out of my first appointment.  I knew from googling whatever I might be able to find, and from friends' experience with Graston, as well as my own experiences even from massage, that it was going to be uncomfortable.  But other than that, I wasn't too sure where he was going to be working or how long it may last.

Answer was about 15-20 minutes.  The first session focused on two locations - my ankle to try and regain some dorsiflexion, and my knee, trying to regain some flexion.

Ankle:

Focus was on the lateral (fibial) side.  This is the side where I had my plate and seven screws (thankfully removed last October).  Overall it was not super pleasant, but the discomfort level wasn't off the charts.

Knee:

Whereas my ankle was all manual release, for my knee he brought in the instrument adhesion release.  Essentially, a piece of metal stripped away at the lateral side of my knee which was way more uncomfortable than anything on the ankle had been.  He moved a bit across the joint line and did a bit of work on the medial side as well and then proceeded to above my patella and hammered away at my quad tendon/vastus medialis.  The last thing he did was a bit of work on my lateral quad - he said the two quads (so I'm assuming vastus lateralis and intermedius) were stuck together.

Test/Re-Test:

Initial test on my ankle was a difficult 3" dorsiflexion, with restriction in the anterior compartment.  Re-test was a fairly easy 3.5", with far less feeling of restriction.

The day's test on my knee was initially 8.5" short of being able to touch my heel to my butt while laying supine.  We finished at 6", which was pretty significant.

Bruising:

There was redness in my calf, but it was really no worse for wear:

My quad tendon/vastus medialis/whatever started turning a bit purple about an hour after we finished:

The lateral side of my knee was much the same, and bruised a bit within an hour.

Next Day Feels:

My ankle was stiff, but not painful.  My knee was a bit of a different story.  I started to have a lot of discomfort alone the posterior line of my knee when trying to move into extension.  It was super weird.  I wound up spending a lot of time doing knee extension work.  I got a lot of relief from doing banded terminal knee extensions.