Thursday, November 10, 2011

Def seems to be a Sports hernia

[UPDATE:  turns out it wasn't a sports hernia, just a really really tight pectineus that was trying to protect the instability in my hip caused by the tear in the labrum]
Ok so the more I look up stuff on sports hernias the more I am convinced that I have one.  Sports hernias are different than regular hernias.  In fact, they are very different injuries.  A sports hernia is tissue (including muscle) ripped off the pubic bone.  While I have tried to be conservative with my activity, I still find myself pushing through the pain to get the exercise done.  I've been doing some crossfit, subbing out exercises that hurt for ones that don't (rowing instead of running, etc).  Thing is, seems like there are more and more exercises that are starting to hurt so I'm going to take some time off and just do swimming (if I can) or something while I figure this out. I did start to feel better when I rested it, so back to rest I go.

As weird as this sounds, I think this could be a blessing. To be honest I'm starting to think I may have had a sports hernia to begin with.  I figured out the pain in my hip was from too tight muscles, which caused the FAI and torn labrum.  So once I got my hips to loosen up, the pain abated to a level that I could easily handle doing anything (scale of 1 to 10, 2 at most).  Thing is, my psoas kept tightening up causing pain so I keep having to go to get a massage.  Both my massage therapist and I are a little confused as to wonder why my psoas keeps tightening up.  I had figured out one level of why I had hip pain (tight muscles) but couldn't figure out the underlying reason why certain muscles were tightening up so much and so quickly.  ...A sports hernia could be the reason, a little muscle tear around the pubic bone could definitely cause contraction/tightening in the psoas.  And when I competed in the Oly lift competition and C+J'd 220 (when I also pulled my groin) I might have exacerbated the problem, causing more damage.  So perhaps this is a good thing, perhaps I will have finally figured out the underlying cause for my hip pain and be able to address it and move forward.

I plan on seeing a prolotherapist here in Chicago (Dr. Hauser), one who seems to have a good reputation from the reviews I've found so far (he also has a lot of youtube clips out there).  He claims that prolotherapy can help with torn labrums and sports hernias, and his website talking about why it works seems legit, so I think I'll give it a go, although I'm skeptical.  If that doesn't work, then I will probably have to have surgery.  It's damage to soft tissue, so as far as I understand it that type of injury doesn't repair itself.  I just may need an outpatient procedure where they get me with one or two staples and I'll be 100% in like a month.  Thing is, the staples have to be in the right place and so it will require a doctor that knows what he's doing, and I have yet to find a specialist.

One of the owners of crossfit rise had a sports hernia, and he elected not to have surgery, but it took him a year to recover.  So I'm really not sure what to do, although I don't really think I have the patience to wait it out for a year.

Really hope I can beat this thing.

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