Phase Two of Rehab from Prolotherapy

8 weeks out from the first prolo treatment. I can see why Doc wanted to space these treatments out 9 weeks apart.  I'm still feeling everything... settle.  I now really don't feel any of the pain that I felt after the treatment when I hold things, and I'm still not cracking my neck like I used to, so that seems to indicate progress is being made.  I've started working on strength and range of motion.  I think, for my shoulder muscles, using the Indian Clubs is pretty much ideal. It works on strengthening and stretching at the same time, plus it's pretty fun.  In addition to using Indian clubs (I use them as a warm up) I am now doing an upper body day and a lower body day, here's the program:

Upper Body (A)

DB Bench press (5 X 10)

Lat pulls (5 X 10)

DB Rows (3 X 12)

Tricep extentions (3 X 12)

Bicep Curls (3 X 12)

Shrugs (3 X 12)

Shoulder Raises (3 X 12)

Lower Body (B)

KB stiff leg deadlifts (5 X 10)

KB Box squats (light) (5 X 10)

DB Lunges (3 X 12)

Leg Curls (3 X 12)

Leg Extentions (3 X 12)

Note: one thing that is important to note is that I don't have any movement where I elevate my shoulder past 90 degrees. I'm still not ready for overhead movements like incline bench or overhead press.

The frequency of my workouts is Day 1 is conditioning (sprints), Day 2 is A, Day 3 is B, rest day, then repeat. It's three days on, one day off, like crossfit.

Leg day killed me, especially the lunges. On the second set my hammies cramped up so I just stopped.

I've noticed now when doing bench press I experience a clicking in the very front part of my shoulder. It isn't accompanied by any pain, but this might be important because Dr. Fullerton thought there might be something wrong with the front part of my shoulder. Who knows.

I'm still feeling all the normal pangs, but then all the pangs are not bothering me as much as they used to. I feel healthier. I feel like I'm better. I actually feel like I can get back to 100%, something I haven't experienced in over a decade.

Six weeks out from first treatment

So it's been two weeks of doing the scapular stabilization exercises. After the first day of exercise, my muscles were sore/unhappy for about 5 minutes, but then everything went back to normal. I get the same experience after each workout, but each time it's to a lesser extent.  These past couple of times I've had no increase in pain after working out, so I think now I'm going to start getting back to strength/ROM, so that means I'll get to work with Indian clubs, in addition to some other dumb bell/barbell exercises.

I think I've been babying my body for a while now. I've been really conservative just because I want to heal up ASAP.  But when I expressed my concerns to the Dr. he just said to let pain be your guide and to keep moving.


Letting pain be my guide has been difficult, because right now I'm back to being in pain all the time.  The amount of pain/discomfort that I'm in is less than before I started this, but it's still there. So knowing that my muscles are still frayed, is it ok to use them, to push them? It seems from Doc's advice that it is ok.

The pain/discomfort that’s going on in my back is... evolving. It used to be just this big knot of pain, but now I can feel each muscle separately and feel the pain in each one.  It's like a room of people has gone from everyone screaming and you can't hear what they're saying to everyone is talking loudly and you can now make out each conversation. Hopefully after the second treatment it will be reduced to a quiet murmur.

Concerning my hip. It's been... interesting. When I mentioned to one PT that I still experience hip pain despite the fact that I haven't squatted/deadlifting for six weeks he asked if I've considered the possibility that it's a sports hernia. I have, in the past, been given that diagnosis, but I think that is not what I have.  The main reason being that there are times where I do not experience any pain. I think because there are things that I can do to relieve the pain, it's not a sports hernia. I may be wrong, I'm not an expert on the subject matter. However, I figure it my groin pain is stemming from some type of structural damage then it should be fairly constant. That's how it was before I had PRP injections to treat the torn labrum in my hip (constant pain no matter what I did).

As of right now, when my groin/pectineus acts up I also have a tight TFL and possibly glute medius and piraformis.  I roll out on a soft ball, and it is amazingly painful but when I get that release in the back of my hip, the pain in the front seems to go away, or at least diminish greatly.

So it seems that my current hip/groin pain is coming from tight muscles in the back of my hip, and those, in turn, may be tightening up because of the structural damage to my left hip capsule or to the fact that my left spinal erectors don't seem to work very well right now.  In either case, that first week after my first prolo treatment for the left hip/right spinal erectors, I had no hip/groin pain whatsoever.  ...I hope this hasn't been too confusing, if there's any questions just leave a comment and I'll be happy to respond.

I've starting running hard for short bursts on the treadmill, and it doesn't seem to cause any trouble whatsoever, so I'm thinking it would be ok for me to get into sprinting. There's a sprinting group that works out nearby. I'd like to join them but I'll have to tell them that in about three weeks I'll have to stop going for about a month.  We'll see what happens.

Rehab from Torn Labrum in Shoulder: First Day.

Excited because today I get to do resistance work!!!
Going to start out conservative, going to work on scapular stability.  I should point out that I'm not just working on recovering from a torn labrum, but I'm also working with damaged rotator cuff and various back muscles.

On a related note, I've realized what I'm doing is broader than just treating a torn laburm. Through this process I've found out that I have an injured rotator cuff as well. There are a lot of people out there that might benefit from avoiding surgery to repair their rotator cuff, so I'm going to make it easier for them to find some of these videos.  A torn labrum and damaged rotator cuff go hand in hand, actually. This might be one reason why surgery repairing a labrum only might be ineffective in relieving pain, it might be only a partial repair. Plus, if you have poor mechanics you're just going to tear it again.

Anyway back to my protocol for scapular stabilization.  My rehab will go through three different phases. First is endurance, second is range of motion/strength, and the third is speed strength.  Endurance will get those stabilizers back to strength, so I will develop proper mechanics. Then I can work on strength, like bench press. And after that has been worked some then I can work on explosiveness, like in Olympic lifts and sprinting.

Here is the document describing the exercises I'm doing for phase one. I'm planning on doing only 2 sets for the first two times, and after that bump it up to three. Also, I'm doing these every other day, adding weight bit by bit. Hopefully I can move on to phase two in two to three weeks, depending on how I'm feeling.

Ear Problem Solved??!!?!?!

Since High school, I’ve experienced discomfort with my left ear.  Not the outside, actual ear, but inside, like my eardrum.  I’ve always felt like there’s too much pressure in that ear.  In Ms. Sutton’s pre-calculus I was stretching my neck, trying to release the tension that I was feeling.  I pulled my head toward my right shoulder a little and I hear a “crack”, and felt some immediate relief.  That was the beginning of a 17 year habit of cracking my neck.  I always experienced a sensation of whatever muscle that was too tight in my ear relaxing.  I would also try swallowing, trying to get my left ear to decompress, it was a very subtle, but very constant nuisance. 

Today, instinctively I started pinching my neck, the part right under the jawbone, kind of near the glands Drs feel to see if you’re sick. I felt some asymmetry, some kind of lump on the left side. Pressed on it thinking it was a knot of muscle that needed to be released. I did not get a release I got something... different.  With a loud “crunch” I felt something give.  It felt like I put something back into place, or absolutely destroyed something.  I freaked out a little because of the severity of the crunch and its proximity to my voicebox. It was like I had destroyed a thin, airy wafer in my neck and I was worried I had hurt myself.

I said something and sounded fine, so I calmed down and realized that  whatever it was that was bothering me had disappeared. I felt the left side of my sinuses clear up a little. I feel my left ear open up a little (it itches some now as I type this), and when I swallow both sides feel the same, the same blessed feeling of normalcy.

This is awesome.  Besides the pain in my shoulder this discomfort in the ear was a major factor I decided to get the treatment. I don’t know if this was just a temporary fix, but it feels way better than it has in over a decade and it’s lasted for about an hour as I type this, much longer than any other treatment I’ve had. Perhaps this will be permanent, that would be amazing.

Post Prolo: First Day of Exercise

So it’s been two weeks since I saw Dr. Fullerton and I’m now able to do really low-impact stuff. For example, I can now walk on a treadmill for 10 minutes!!!!!! Sad as that is, I’m happy to be out doing something. …I’m also a little surprised how winded I get walking on a 3% grade incline.  As I understand it, if I feel good from today’s work then I can do 15 minutes 

We will see how it goes.  In another two weeks I will be able to do some type of resistance training. I’m already trying to plan out some stuff and when I have it all figured out I’ll post the protocol here for all to enjoy.  I’ve reached out to my friend/trainer/pt guy in IL who programmed my rehab for my hip in the hopes that he’ll do it again. If he does this will be amazing because his understanding of the body is amazing.  Here's the latest entry for the Vlog:

Seems to be a Connection between my Right and Left Hip

Interestingly enough, even though Dr. Fullerton addressed my left not-that-painful hip, the pain in my right pectineus has gone away.  I don’t understand the reason why, I mean how could a pit in my left hip capsule affect the front of my right hip?  But my right hip pain really isn’t there anymore. On a scale of 1 to 10 it was down to like .5, but now it’s where I forget that I’m pain free. It’s the kind of pain free where I haven’t thought about it, which is the ultimate goal.

I have to admit, I wonder how much of my struggles have stemmed from the injuries/weaknesses in my back.  I know the back muscles (especially the rhomboids) play a large part in stabilizing the torso with the front squat, and that was definitely where I would fail.  My legs could handle the weight, but I would still dump the bar on the way up because I’d lose my balance.  I’ve been doing dumb bell rows, and I’ve noticed it’s way easier to pull the weight with my right arm than it is with my left. The weakness has never felt like a strength issue, it’s always felt like a “muscle just stops responding” issue. Having a frayed trap/rhomboid/lavator will do that I guess.

…The fraying of the muscles in my lower back could also be a reason why I struggle so mightily with deadlifts. A common reason why people fail a deadlift is a weak upper back. If my lavatory, etc. are frayed and weak this could be the reason why I have so much trouble with the heavy pulls. Also, if my left spinal erectors are the ones doing all of the work, then that could explain why my lower back just kills me after deadlifts.  It’s never been a matter of leg strength. Never has been. I was doing leg presses (don’t judge) of 450# for 10 reps pretty easily right before seeing Dr. Fullerton, yet I’m struggling pulling 300# off the ground and doing anything above 230# with the front squat is killer.

All these things give me hope that once I’m healed I’ll have a much higher ceiling with the front squat, deadlift, pull ups, and rows.

And the Vlog continues:

First Prolo Treatment with Dr. Fullerton

Fist off I have to say that I really like Dr. Fullerton. He's very professional and very thorough.  Heck even my wife likes him and now thinks that prolotherapy is a valid form of treatment.  The plan was to meet him on Thursday afternoon for an examination, and then friday morning for the treatment.  The first meeting went much longer than I expected. First, it took a long time to go over my medical history. It was fairly confusing for both the PA doing my intake and myself since I've seen four different doctors in VA and IL for the hip that I wasn't seeking treatment for, while having seen a PA in NC for the shoulder pain who gave the diagnosis of a torn labrum.  There's a lot of information there that can get jumbled up over the six years I've been seeking treatment.

So after my intake was complete Dr. Fullerton came in.  Like I said, he was very thorough.  He had me do a bunch of different functional tests to see what was wrong.  It was very similar to getting an assessment from a PT.  He then used the ultrasound machine to see what was going on.  He also did palpitations to see if any spot hurt.  Using these methods he pretty much pinpointed the exact areas of pain in my back.  The lavator, the rhomboid, the trap, and the supraspinatus.  He said these muscles all looked "frayed". That's not exactly what one likes to hear, but he said he's seen worse.  This fraying is all in addition to the torn labrum.  He also found some weakness in the spinal errectors on the right said of my back.  If they couldn't do anything, perhaps my left side has to overcompensate, which is why I've always had a tight QL and pain on the left side.  He also examined my left him, the one that now doesn't seem to move as well as my right, and said there was a pit in the capsule.  That doesn't sound good.  He also found out that when doing internal rotation with that him it caused pain on the inside of the hip joint, the part right next to my junk.  I'm not sure what all of the diagnosis were or meant, all I know is that he found a boatload of problems and he had his work cut out for him.

 

Then I saw him the next day for treatment.  He had me do all those tests that I failed again. Then he injected me with lidocaine to numb the relevant body part.  He waited for the numbing agent to take effect, and then injected the body part with dextrose under ultrasound guidance.  After that he then had me do the test again, and I passed!  It was very strange how immediate the effect was.  For example, he twisted my hip into internal rotation and it hurt on the inner part of the joint. He then injected some solution into the outer part of the capsule, did the motion again, and it no longer hurt!  After he went over everything with Dextrose, he then did the injections of the blood.  He had 180ml drawn to be spun out, so I imagine he had a lot of PRP to work with, so I think he injected everything with the PRP as well.

There was almost no pain during the treatment. None.  The lidocaine really worked at making the real injections painless.  The pain that I did experience came from the pressure of having so much solution

Lots of band-aids after the treatment.

injected into my body.  The pain immediately after the treatment got a little intense.  It's not that the pain is really that severe, is that you know you can't get away from it, nothing you can do will alleviate the pain, and that's hard to accept.  They put an ice-pack on my back for 10 minutes (That's the max you want to do, and only the day of since you don't want to reduce any of the acute inflammation it's suppose to cause.) and gave me some Tylenol and I was good to go.

The injection sites feel like hot water balloons underneath the skin.  My hip didn't feel anything for the first two hours, but my back felt it immediately.  I was able to sit in the car while we drove back home from Austin, and then I went out and ran some errands and then went to the museum with some friends. If I had the chance to do it all over again, I would've just stayed at home and slept, but I was able to do everything and anything I wanted to.

I really like that Dr. Fullerton was able to find so many things wrong.  Well, I don't mean to say that I'm happy I have so many things wrong with me, just that I feel that he was so complete that after these treatments I won't have anything unaddressed.  I won't have anything lingering.

I now definitely want him to examine my right hip once he has finished fixing the left hip, if the left hip proves not to be the source of the lingering pain in my right hip.

Given a choice between the two, I would rather go to Dr. Fullerton than Dr. Hauser. Dr. Fullerton's examination is much more complete. Dr. Hauser isn't really for diagnosing, just fixing.  So if there's something missed in the diagnosis, Dr. Hauser isn't going to find and address the problem.

Here's the part of my recordings the day of the treatment: