The run around again

Hi everyone. It is post Thanksgiving thank god. Not in a good mood lately. I was hoping that this thanksgiving would be a major improvement in my symptoms or at least have a more definitive answer to my issues.
Went to visit both my doctors on Tuesday. The first one took three hours total . The neurosurgeon sent me to a pain management doc who did the nerve testing and ordered the blood test. Apart from having a vitamin b deficiency,and a slightly high blood glucose count, everything is fine. Now he wants me to go see a rhumatologist. After the pain management doctor, I went to the neurologists. He was also a hour and a half wait. I found it to be a worthless visit because he wanted me to get hip and back x rays. I told them that I had that already and that I thought it would be useless, expensive test since I know that x rays are bad at seeing anything that is soft tissue. I feel deep down that I am been giving the run around.
So I am left to ponder what is next for me. My massage therapist said he does think it is only soft tissue problems and that over time it will go away. He said that my left side(operated side) is still considerable weak and that my right is just plain old tired of supporting my left. So I am going to play my own therapist for a while and see. My game plan is to continue to strengthen the left and try to stay off the right so it can recover from four years of supporting me. The massage guy will continue to stretch my abductors, sartarius, tensae latae and hamstring. I will work on strengthening my abductors, external rotators of the hip and my medial quad muscles. Hopefully that will help me with the undiagnosed knee issues I have on that side. I will leave my right side alone for a while and see.
Today I attempted to do a single leg squat on the left and I was able to do it. It was not perfect but I managed to. When I did it on my right, the outside of my knee hurt a little. So I concentrated on making sure my toes did not turn out. So far so good. I will try again on Wednesday.
Wish me luck.

Still confused

Well. The awaited MRI reports came in and guess what? They still do not know anything. My bulges and herniation remains the same , no worse, no better. How can it be no better? I have been doing everything to improve short of surgery. Shouldn't my bulges have gone away by now? Why are my tears not healing? For heaven sakes it has been over three freaking years already. So is it safe to say that decompression did squat? Ooh I am furious.
I also went and saw someone who did a bunch of nerve tests. All I know is that it was god awful painful when he jolted me with the electricity and pricked me with needles. One needle hit a nerve the wrong way and I almost kicked the doctor. I kept apologizing after. I kept thinking what a horrible job it is to stick people with needles. Well anyway that test helped to determined somehow that my bulges and herniation is not that bad for the pains I am experiences. And then he said the dreaded words. Maybe you have fibromyglacia( I am sure I spelt it wrong) You know the syndrome that is used whenever you have a bunch of symptoms that mimic other symptoms. So now I am going to get a blood test. They want to rule out that I do not have an inflammatory disease.
So the clock ticks. Will fill you in on my next post. Wish me some luck with getting somewhere with this.

Post Decompression

Well it has been almost a month since my last decompression. I did twenty eight session total.
How am I feeling? Well if you asked me that last week I was feeling like crap. For some reason everything flared up that had kind of subsided during decompression. A added issue is my lower back. It is so tight after walking. When doing my walks and the little physical therapy that was given to me I would be in so much pain. It was all kind of pain. I had the nerve pain radiating down my inner groin and outer leg, tiny zaps pain here and there, followed by the tight pull I feel in my adductors and hamstring. Also my outer knee was just feeling weird. Felt like ants was walking up and down the side. The bottom of my feet where my toes connect feels like a bone bruise. I am having a hard time pushing off the big toes. That was an issue that I had a year ago. It popped up on the radar while visiting Santa Barbara. I thought it had to do with the hills. It is so confusing trying to figure out if all these symptoms are from my back or just my body parts breaking down?
So I have decided to visit a couple neurosurgeons and get a couple of opinions on whats going on and what I should do. I guess it is a sit and wait game from here. In the meantime I am so enjoying my myofascial therapy and the Thai stretches that I am getting from my massage therapist. He is the bomb. I feel if it was not for him I would have went crazy by now. He just seems to calm everything down for a while. Well see you after my doctors visits. I am crossing my finger that all my issues will disappear before seeing him. S

Been there done it

Hi. So the saga still continues.........
So finally after changing orths I found one that said that I had herniations of the L5 and L4. I was so happy to find a reason for my right hip and leg pain. I immediately went to a pain management clinic for an epidural injection. It was a painful procedure. Similar to my epidoral shot for my second pregnancy. I walked out of there like a drunk. But alas no sessation to my pain. Absolutely none, in fact I had more. About nine months later after not doing anything I decided to look for some other theraphy. I found prolotheraphy. At least I thought it was. I had six episodes of shots in my spine. They were the most painful thing I had endored. I began to see the light. But alas shortlived. During the span of less pain, I then tried to pick up on some exercise regiment. I began walking and trying to do the ellptical. I had this constant tired feeling in my right leg and the feeling that my leg from my knee down was twisting out like a duck. I constantly kept trying to keep it from doing that but it was a constant battle. I also started to lose my hair and I had a constant headache with a metallic taste in my mouth. I found out later that I was not getting prolo but instead facets injections which is purely steriods and some other potentially strong drugs. I then came across The fitness fixer and was elated. The author said if you were to follow the rules you will be back to normal. The rules were to keep a neutral spinal alighnment throughout the day and to take out any exercises or stretches that puts the spine in a worse position. Also she was big on getting exercises thoughout the day from normal housework and practicing your squats and single leg squats in your everyday routines. . Along with some stretches in the morning I should heal. But alas no such thing. Again I began a back ward slide. My knees began hurting even more. What really p#*"d me off was Dr. Jolie attitude when I would complain about my symptoms not going away. I finally stopped corresponding to her blog because I felt that I was more of a pain in the #"* with her and was not contributing to her success stories. I am not saying that she was not helpful. Because her advice helped some. Paying attention to my arches was one of the biggest help. It took away some pain that I was having in my knees and left hip. But since she did not see me in person I cannot say that she wouldn't have helped even more. In my case, I really am beginning to think that I have an issue that has not been addressed. The reason I say so is because my pain is constant. I never have relief. I am always flaring up and I do not seem to have a dwon time from pain. On reading about other people who have herniations, they are able to exercises and travel with periodic flare ups.
Anyways I then started spinal decompression. Again I began feeling a little better and began a routine of walking on the beach and around the neighborhood. I exceeded the twenty visits that is the norm for spinal decompression and after the additional eight, I was released.
Well what can I say? I am back to my issues again. It has been almost three weeks since my last decompression visit and I am having a lot of return to the issues I had. My right hip and groin is angry again. I sometimes cannot put my finger on my groin because it sends a shooting pain down my legg. The constant pain is all along the hip where the leg attaches. My adductors are constantly spazzing along with my hamstring, psoas and It band area. Now to add since the decompression I have a new pain in my lower back where they pulled. I was told that sometimes it takes a few weeks to feel better after decompression. But I am beginning to not think that is my case. So whats next?
I went to a new gynocologist. I had to go to a new one because my old one closed shop. I immediatley fell in love with Dr. Solamon. She wrote the book" What your mother did not tell you. " She was already prevy to my condition because she also sees my massage therapist. I felt so good with her. She told me that we were going to get to the bottom of this. She checked for a kidney stone, did a sonogram of my pelvic and took blood work. She felt that I have a femoral nerve impingement. So she prescribed a nerve patch. The problem with that is it cost seventy five dollars for eight. Also I am confused as to where to put it since I have so many pain all over. I cannot tell what is referral pain from what is not. So here I am . Chat later Sloan

Still a pain!

Hi.
Continuing from where I left off. I was saying that I began experiencing groin and knee pain. Taking off a couple of weeks helped a little. It really became a issue after a hard day of traveling through Dallas airport. Husband being an airline pilot, I get to travel non-rev. Oh the privilege of being a non rev passenger. Lets see what are the positives except for a free ride, nothing. Every other normal paying passenger gets to be at the gate an hour before scheduled departure dress as comfortable as they want. No not us, we have to show up dressed as if we are going to meet the president of America. No jeans, sweat suits, sneakers, slippers, t shirts,polo shirts with logos and shorts. We have to be there at least two hours ahead. Seventy percent of the time you do not even get on the flight. Or if you do you do not get to sit with each other. Hense no checked luggage if you want your personals with arrivals. And sometimes there is no space left in the overhead compartment and they have to check it anyway. So hopefully my description of non rev travel will be a eye opener for those who think that we are so privileged and lucky.
So moving on to the day in question that started it all. I was wearing these cool Anne Klein shoes. They were only about an inch high but they had the closed toes. After going through one long terminal we discovered that the gate had completely changed. That took us another twenty five minutes to get to. Running through the airport was not fun. I developed callous on my toes and began limping through the airport. By the time I got to my destination I was dying. The torture did not stop there. Going out to dinner that night, my energetic, husband decided to get off the bus about a mile from the restaurant that we were going to eat. I had changed to wearing a pair of boots and that did it.
Returning to Florida, I attempted to just walk on the treadmill. About two minutes into it this pain would start up in my left leg and then just spread to my knees, and groin. I decided again to take a break for a couple of weeks. On returning I decided to just take walks in my neighborhood. When I would attempted to speed up I would get a stabbing pain in my groin and followed later with this non stop ebbing pain that would run down the back of leg and into my butt. All I know was that I had to stop whatever I was doing to take away the pain. But as soon as I attempted any sort of hip flex ion and extension it would come back with a vengeance.
Finally I gave in and went to an orthopedic doctor. He ordered mri's of my knee and hip. They came back with my hip showing a possible labral tear and my knee a possible plica. I had never heard of any of these injuries before. I went home and goggled but really there was not much info out there on labral tears. And what was out there was promising. Aided with my new found discovery and my orthopedic telling me that my athletic background would help me tremendously with my recovery, I booked my surgery for January 13th 2005.
Surgery took a hour and a half longer than was told to me. Upon waking up from the anesthesia, I was told by my doc that it was a larger tear than they had anticipated but that he had got it all. He removed the floating pieces of labrum and repair the danglers. He said that my hip was in excellent condition, showing no arthritis and that I should have a full recovery.
A week later I went to physical therapy which entailed just riding the bicycle and doing static stretching followed by isolated movements for the hip. I was happy to just be moving a long. I had issues with walking up and down stairs and internal and external rotation. But all in all I was progressing. About three weeks into it, I began experiencing new issues, my left knee and operated hip began popping a lot and I had this feeling that it would give out sometimes. I became even more frustrated with this new issue with my knee because it would stop me from doing the theraphy that was so much needed for my hip to heal. I could not do any leg extensions, leg curls, and even had to take out adductor and abductor exercises. Also I began experiencing one of the pain I had before surgery. The pain running down the back of my legs. It was a nerve like pain. I could not even walk on the treadmill but I could walk on flat terrain. That was baffling to me. I eventually found another physical therapist who began doing more functional rehab with me. Eventually the pain that I would have walking on the treadmill went away. But I was still having issues with my knee. I noticed that I had a huge lump right behind the knee on the medial side. I was unsure if it was on my adductor or my hamstring. All I knew was that both those muscles were super super tight. Stretching them was so painful. But I was determined to get over this. I did everything I was told to do. I would roll on a roller every morning followed by stretching and then light cardio and then my functional exercises followed by more rolling and stretching again. I would go home and ice for twenty minutes and then later rolled and stretched again. I also began having issues with doing any abdominal work.
That is when I began getting angry. See you next week for more on this saga. Sloan

What a pain!

Hi. It has taken me a while to post again. As I mentioned in my previous post, my main reason for starting this blog was to inform the newbies to hip surgery what to expect. First off if your doctor tells you that you will be back to new, run.
Let me start from the beginning. I have always been an athlete, I love how I felt after a run, my endorphins were out of the roof. In high school I participated in volleyball, high jump, sprinting and dabbled with basketball. After high school I became even more addicted to exercises. I got married in October of 1988 and after giving birth to a big healthy son I returned to exercising. This time I decided to join a gym. If any of you can remember, the gym was not for girls in the eighties, well except for Jack Lalanne. But the gym I went to was filled with big men. I lived for a while in New York in Orange County. If you are familiar with the area,it is home to a couple of maximum security prison. My gym was filled with prison guards. I was in awe of all the testosterone running around. My husband put me on all the various machines and I was hooked. I have always been a strong girl. To think of it when I was in Belize,(my country of birth) once in a while we would not have any running water and would have to walk a block to the neighboring water hole with these huge water buckets. I would carry two at a time. I would get a lot of respect for that. So again I received a lot of respect in the gym because I was so strong. I remember the first time I bench press, my husband kept increasing the weights because I was not challenged. My first bench press was for one hundred and thirty five pounds. My max squats was three hundred and fifteen. I had an audience and gain a following. Before long I was competing in bodybuilding contests. But we all know that just sheer strength does not make you a winner. I never placed first in any of my competition. And the winners looked like men. I was encourage to do fitness shows but I had no gymnastic background and was intimidated by their skills. After moving back to Florida, I became a mommy again. I added a beautiful daughter to our little family. I then began getting bored with my traditional bodybuilding workouts and began searching for something else to do. I came across pilates and functional training. I again felt excited about exercising. My body never looked so good. I began toying with the idea of competing again. I decided to do another competition before I reached the big 4o. That is when everything started. I began having knee pain and had to cut out a lot of open chain movements for my knee. One particular day after doing my walking lounge, I began experiencing hip and groin pain. Did not worry too much because in the past I would take a week or two off and be fine again. Not this time.
I will leave it at that for this post but join me soon, I will have more.

I am starting my Blog today!!!

Wow! I am so excited!!!
I have been spending over one hour with my crazy Romanian friend Liana to get this started.

I can't wait to share my inner thoughts, experiences and most of all my journey to healing knowledge!!

So where do I begin? I have so many things to share with you. My priority is to share my experience with healing after hip scope surgery because life as I knew it changed dramatically afterwards...What started out as just a torn cartilage in the hip has progressed to major joint issues.

Please check my blog, more things to come very soon!!