Quick update here...
I had my doctor's appointment, MRI and brief follow up. The MRI showed an "irritated pelvis". Something tells me that's actually a proper medical term, but it maybe the kind way of saying that I might-could-possibly-not have a Sports Hernia. I have all the symptoms though, including some material inflammation around the attachments and bone, but no breaks and no major tears.
In other words, I have to completely rest and if I'm not better by mid-February, then I'll likely go under the knife to get treated as sports hernia. I'd have some nasty, non biodegradable mesh shoved into me to help reinforce the soft tissues that attach to the pelvis. There is no guarantee that it fixes the problem and it likely comes with side effects down the road. Fantastic! Well clearly I'm going to avoid this if at all possible.
In the mean time, in order to fix my Sports Hernia AKA so-called Irritated Pelvis, I'm into my third week of seeing a PT twice a week. The treatment has been dry needling. It's a rather intense form of acupuncture. It is one needle at a time for about 15 seconds each. Maybe a total of 10-15 needles through out my adductors, abs, hip flexors, and glute. While the needles are in, they're stimulated (ie, jabbed, stabbed, flicked, tweaked, electrified, whatever) in order to get the targeted muscles "reset". Actually this process is fucking excruciating, but a few needles are far better than a knife! The hope is this forced resetting leads the muscles to chill out and allow for this irritation to calm down.
I've also been getting a deep tissue massage every week or two. Otherwise, complete physical shut down has been ordered. I can't do anything right now. Over loading the core muscles would likely impede the healing process. And unfortunately, that makes sense as you're almost always using your core muscles. I need to limit that load. This is probably the most frustrating of all, because I'm dying to at least do something in order to not fall completely apart.... my endurance is gone, my muscles are withering away, and I've gained about 10-12 lbs since the Chicago Marathon.
It's a long, slow, and mentally agonizing process. I'm supposed to be fit and training for the Boston Marathon at the moment, and instead I'm on the brink of pulling that plug. My only glimmer of hope is that as of today, for the first time in over two months, I officially recognized that I'm feeling just a little better than I was just a few days ago. I haven't seen that up until today.
They say it's always darkest before dawn. I just maybe have passed that darkest moment. Only time will tell.
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