Originally Posted by
RChung
A decade or so ago I had a bad episode of sciatica that resulted in numbness and loss of control in my right foot: my foot flopped when I walked, I had to climb stairs with my left leg and then drag my right leg up to clear the step. I didn't have pedal power meters, I had a hub-based PM that measures total combined power. The drop in power was stark, and I didn't need a separate sided power meter to tell me that. Over the course of the next six or seven months, I slowly regained control of my foot and, as I did, total combined power edged back up. I'm not sure how having separable right/left data would have changed my rehab: it would have told me how much imbalance there was, but I already knew how much (combined) loss there was. I don't think the actual L/R balance would have been actionable.
Did you work with a physical therapist? Mine (actually I've had multiple in my 3 months so far) have (all) told me that it's important to not pick up bad habits like limping or favoring a leg because they will be difficult to unlearn even after my strength comes back. They would rather I take things easier than lean on overcompensating my activity with one leg.
To the extent that my injured leg is far weaker now than my other, when I used to be consistently between 48-52% and often averaged an even split over multi-hour intense rides, I suspect that there's a degree of favoring the uninjured leg that will need to be unlearned. I already feel more back tension on one side due to unbalanced pedaling.