Michele Bird

Best Friend to Pat, MOM, PT, OCS, Dr. Bird, Anatomy and Biomechanics Instructor at University of Michigan, Go Blue 〽️, #1 Fan to Gabi, Lucas & Bryce, Realist.

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

Way to go @gbird_33 !

[cm(1) @carterjmccullen]

Senior Year. Gabi Bird.

5⃣5⃣ 3PT FG's
Mid American Conference 6⃣th Player of the Year
Graduating with 4⃣💍's

Thank you for everything you've done for this Program, University, and Community!

#4Peat #FireUpForever

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@jasonwhitlock You’re so weird. Please move on..

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@iknowWhiteGold @Eien1239 Yes- an idiot!

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@statechampsmich @CoachStine32 Congrats Scott and team!

[Howard Luks MD @hjluks]

I’ve been an orthopedic surgeon for nearly 30 years, and a few patterns have become impossible to ignore. One is that many musculoskeletal problems in adults aren’t sudden injuries. They’re the moment when declining capacity and awful metabolic health finally reveals itself.

Over the decades your strength fades, muscle mass declines, as your aerobic capacity tanks. Tendons and connective tissues lose substance, stiffness, and resilience. For years the body compensated... quietly. Then one day a knee hurts during a run to get the train, or shoulder aches reaching overhead, or a back tightens lifting something simple.

At that point the story usually becomes more about structural damage. An MRI gets ordered. Welcome to high-tech, low-medicine. And the MRI almost always finds something. A meniscus tear. A rotator cuff tear. A disc bulge. Why? Because by midlife these findings are extremely common — even in people with no pain at all. If you have a tear in one shoulder, image the other shoulder... you probably have the same tear there. But I digress.

Once the scan appears, the narrative changes. The image becomes the diagnosis. Now the patient believes something is broken, and the focus often shifts to fixing what the MRI shows.

What often gets lost in this is the reason the symptoms appeared in the first place. Many so-called “atraumatic” orthopedic complaints are not purely mechanical failures. They are the moment when reduced strength, declining tissue capacity, and sometimes broader metabolic health issues finally reach a tipping point. Our tissues change over the decades... get over it.

In other words, the MRI didn’t create the problem. Well... it sort of did in this scenario. But all the MRI showed was something that was already there.... because of your age, lifestyle, health and so on.

The real driver of symptoms is often loss of physiologic reserve. Less muscle. Less tendon or aerobic resilience. Less tolerance for load, etc.

Once the MRI enters the picture, the risk becomes overtreatment. This is probably the number one reason people have surgery. When in many cases the most powerful intervention was never the scan or the procedure.

It was rebuilding capacity.

Strong muscles stabilize joints. Aerobic fitness improves metabolic health and tissue perfusion. Gradual loading restores tolerance.

But people often don't take PT seriously prior to surgery. They often take PT very seriously afterwards. Therefore, PT is probably the reason you feel better, despite the surgery.

The irony is that the treatment many people ultimately need is the same thing that might have prevented the problem in the first place.

Staying strong. Staying active. Maintaining the reserve that protects our joints/tendons/muscles/abilities as we age.

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@phys_sam @AxelMar9 @hjluks Thank you- as if it’s Magic.

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@benwehrman Do you know Jesus?

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@Raina15 Congratulations!

[Wilmington Athletics @DubCQuakers]

Congrats to Bryce Bird, Ben Golan, Gavin Heimlich and Nick Malagreca Jr. from #QuakersMBB @DubC_MensHoops for earning CSC Academic All-District honors! To earn this, you must not only have a cumulative grade point average of 3.50 but must have played in 90% of your team's games or started in 67% of them.

#WeAreDubC #experiencewilmingtoncollege

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@Raina15 @kate_martin22 Love it!

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@hmjensen31 @CMUWBBall @kristinhaynie @jennaal33 @ToccaraRenee @CoachChelsie @jroane14 @avahallam1 This game! 🎉🥳💥🤣🎧

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@allicovington @BrockSamspon What form do you recommend? Acetyl or Tartrate or? TIA

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@DubCQuakers @DubC_MensHoops Is there supposed to be sound on the live stream?

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@CannyZanny Rings for everyone! Conference champs and NCAA runs. They get presented during fall sports - ie a football game. Then they wear them to graduation and then it’s over. 😂

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@Coachm_m Yes- I told I was wrong!

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@crashoutking1 This is emotional intelligence 👏👏

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@SourTim @byjuliapoe She described a “crack” in the bone, this is a fracture. Therefore, doctor ruled in a fracture. She described bone to have poor blood supply. That bone is the scaphoid. She shouldn’t try to explain her injury-message lost in translation.

[Michele Bird @mmbird25]

@AaronGoodman33 “Hey Wazowski- You forgot to do you paperwork”

[Dick Vitale @DickieV]

Yes there is no doubt the ROOKIE OF THE YEAR is ⁦@CaitlinClark22⁩ ! ⁦@IndianaFever⁩ - via @ESPN App https://t.co/blSpiMShbF