Back in the summer when this sports hernia was really becoming an issue for me-- roughly in August/September-- I started seeking outside help. At that point I had tried resting, stretching, strengthening on my own, but I had been unable to do any serious running for about two months. I went to my PCP and he referred me to Sport and Spine, which was both a convenient and logical first step. Of course, I didn't have a diagnosis at the time and was treating the injury the way you would a pulled muscle or inflamed tendon. We tried several different stretches and releases at PT (most notably the psoas, which involved the therapist slowly drilling his hand into my side, working his way almost all the way to my spine to try and loosen up the muscle around it), along with some Alter G treadmill running. The Alter G was really cool, and for a moment I felt like Galen Rupp or Ritz, but unfortunately it made no difference for me pain-wise. It was a hopeless endeavor, which became obvious to me after about 4 weeks. 4 weeks of essentially spinning my wheels and going nowhere really put a sour taste in my mouth about the place, even though none of it was actually the fault of the therapists or their plan for care. That's why I wanted to go back and give them (and myself) a second chance.
I tried my best to keep these negative feeling pushed aside, but that hopeless feeling crept up in me like a fever. I even felt physically hot. Scribbling through paperwork as quickly as possible, I was feeling only slightly calmer by the time my PT came into the room to show me to the room where she'd do her evaluation.
Balancing feelings of frustration and a little hope, I retold the annotated version of my injury and everything I'd done since surgery. Obviously, the post-op time was the focus, and I went into detail about my progression since February; here's the abbreviated version of the version I told:
(Did I just use a semicolon and colon in the same sentence? ... I don't know... Does it look obnoxious? Is it even correct grammatically? It just felt right...)
Surgery date: 1/30
@ 5.5 weeks: Very light running, interval style walk/runs
@ 8 weeks I had built up to comfortably do 5 miles straight at about 7:00 pace. Confidence building.
@ 9.5 weeks I was up to 8 miles, overdid it by running too fast one day, and felt myself back tracking big time. I took 4 days off and went back to doing 2-5 mile runs very easy and saw my surgeon again for a follow up @ 11 weeks. He went on to scold me, very matter-of-factly, that I was basically a fool for trying to build up so much running without proper strengthening post surgery. I was asking for a setback eventually.
@ 12 weeks here I am in this office
After going through some basic flexibility and strength tests, we started talking about a plan. The surgeon had told me to stop running entirely until I at least spoke with the PT, which I didn't really listen to very well, but after this meeting and talking about it again I resigned to the facts: I will probably recover faster in the long term if I can limit the setbacks that running too fast or too far will inevitably give me.
The basic plan for PT is to do specific inner hip stretching and strengthening, along with lots of soft tissue release around my hip area (more of this initially), probably work that damn psoas again....
The big picture is this: my affected side is tighter than my right side, which makes sense post-op. Smoothing things out on the muscular level and getting that side of my body to function more fluidly is how I thought about it. Perhaps a little naively, I am hoping to have rapid improvement. I'll be going twice a week for the next few weeks, and you better believe I'll cringe every time I have to fork over that massive copay. I try to ignore it and pretend it's not real... Seems to work pretty well. I'll post updates as I go along of course. Thanks for the support everyone!
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Hey Andrew! Good to know you have a blog. I'm glad you are using this space to describe and process your woes. This is mentally beneficial for you, and the way you describe your treatment is informative for others. When I had my SH, my approach to treating it was sulking and running "at" it sometimes out of misguided frustration. This didn't actually make anything worse, though.
ReplyDeleteI did consider quitting running because this injury wasn't like a stress fracture that knocks you out for a finite and usually specified length of time; the remissions and exacerbations can be maddening, and the false starts get tiresome in a hurry. But my problem eventually did resolve with time, as almost everything will. In your case it's just a matter of when. You're still an athlete and behaving like one in aggressively sticking to the treatment. Wishing you the best!
Thanks Kevin! I appreciate you reading it. It's been a big on again off again struggle but I'm trying to work through it the best I can... This blog has helped me make sense of different setbacks/breakthroughs/etc and talk it out with myself. I've found it more therapeutic than I ever would've thought. And thanks for commenting-- it's very encouraging to hear of your difficulties with the same injury and finally getting through it. It seriously makes a big difference for me to hear stories like that
DeleteI agree with Kevin (for once in my life) that I'm glad you are using the space to document your road back to greatness... Keep the head up and keep moving forward. Also wishing you the best.
ReplyDeleteGreat to hear from you Jim! You're really tearing it up out there though, I've been checking out some of your results... I really hope I can get back to challenge you soon. Hopefully sooner than later. Thanks for the encouragement!
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