photo by Steve Penland

Sunday, November 6, 2016

Just a Little Patience

Or, actually, a lot of patience.  That's what I'll need to get through this next fun phase of "can this hamstring be fixed?" (And for you '80's music aficionados, I apologize for the Guns N' Roses earworm you probably now have.)

In the month and a half since I last posted, I've continued to try to figure out why my hamstring still hurts over two years after surgery, and what to do to make it stop.  I went to a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic--"I'm not sure why it hurts, but I don't believe the pain is nerve-related, at least not the sciatic or lumbar spinal nerves.  I suggest you see a Physical Medicine and Rehab doctor."  So I saw a PM&R doc at the Mayo--"I'm not sure why it hurts.  Let's do another MRI.  No, I see no reason you need to limit your activity."  After viewing the MRI (which apparently looked remarkably similar to the MRI from a year ago), the PM&R doc recommended I see a sports medicine doc and maybe after that the pain clinic.  And the sports medicine doc (also at the Mayo) said (and here's where the "patience" comes in) "I don't think your hamstring ever completely healed on a microscopic level, because of your continued activity.  I recommend that you stop all lower body exercise for six months and let it heal."

Six months.

Yikes.

I didn't like the sound of six months, so I asked him what he thought about the pain clinic option.  He said I could do it if I wanted, but that his recommendation remained "extended rest."

And, as much as I hate the idea--I'm going to do it.  I've spent too much time in pain and too much money on attempted fixes that didn't fix anything; I need to find out if something as simple as resting my leg will work.  And now is a great time to start...my leg is really aggravated and painful right now because I (unwisely) ran with the dog a couple of days ago, about an 8-minute mile pace, for...wait for it...about 50 yards. So right now rest sounds like a good idea.

Even if that means resting it for a LONG time.

Actually, the sports medicine doc didn't say I couldn't do any lower body activity--just nothing that hurt.  He recommended an elliptical machine or aqua jogging.  So the next day I stopped by my local second-hand exercise equipment retailer and hopped on a bunch of their elliptical machines.

They all hurt.

And then the next day I stopped by my local community center and hopped in the pool to give aqua jogging a try.

And it hurt, too.

So it looks like I'm back to the first thing I was allowed to do in rehab: swimming with a pull buoy (no kicking).  I'm happy to report that my swimming is slightly better than it was when I first tried it in rehab two years ago, but I'm still not much of a swimmer so the cardio benefit I will gain will be questionable.  In addition to the swimming I'll continue to do upper body CrossFit (maybe I'll regain my ability to do a strict pullup!), and walk the dog.  And that, for the foreseeable future, will be it for workouts.

I plan to keep a detailed rehab diary (of course I do) reporting pain levels and workouts done. I've rested my leg for six weeks or so a couple of times, and it did improve a bit, but this time I want to know how much it's improving and how fast.  Best case, seeing improvement will help make the time off more tolerable; worst case, if it doesn't work I'll have some nice data for the next doctor I see, six months from now.

At any rate, I think it's going to be a bit quiet around the Long Track Life for the next six months.

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