Never Give Up (Recovering from Injury)

Warming:  Super long post about my injury recovery below.  I always promised if I found the answer to my SI joint/sitting pain I would spread the word as much as I could!

Tomorrow is the end of the 90 Day Challenge, it’s finally weigh out weekend.  At the beginning of the challenge I had all these plans to finally up my running game.  What I wasn’t saying behind the scenes was that I was taking really strong anti-inflammatories to blunt the pain of sitting, running, and working out.  At that point I had been injured for 1.5 years (see my original injury post), I went through so many treatments I can’t even count them, and I won’t count the dollars I spent (but I bet it’s over $5,000).  Here are a few of the posts:

• Return to Yoga (Jan 2014)
• Ice Baths (Feb 2014)
• Jan–> April MRI’s and care from a chiropractor I didn’t really discuss
• Sports Medicine Doctor (June 2014)
• First Round of Physical Therapy (June 2014) –> I thought I was getting better but it was just the anti inflammatories masking everything.
• Pelvic Instability (Oct 2014)
  • hours of setting and resetting my hips
• Prolotherapy (Nov 2014)
• Acupuncture (Nov 2014)
• Ischial Bursitis Injection (Feb 2015)
• Piriformis Injection (April 2015)

After a while I got sick of complaining about my injury on the blog, I mean who wants to read someone’s blog that’s about how miserable their injury is making them all the time.  I tried to keep the updates above in case I found something that worked, I wanted to be able to share how I healed myself.  However, I didn’t follow through on updates because they never really helped, I never really felt a whole lot better (except on medication).  Not focusing on the injury on the blog helped me not focus on it in real life throughout the day, but at night, Mr. Hungry had to deal with severely depressed Kelli.

After all that, you can see why I wrote this post about not wanting to accept help from someone new at the beginning of 90 day.    I thought I was out of answers, I was doomed to anti-inflammatories the rest of my life.  Lucky for me, my family (especially Mr. Hungry and Mama Shallal), co-workers, clients, friends, blog friends, and readers all encouraged me to try again. I’m truly blessed to have so much support and help.

Not only has Dr. Khavari put me on the path to recovery, but he has given me true relief I can finally talk about (see my last update about my progress so far.)  Last week some old pain started to creep up, about 2-3 miles into my run I had SI pain.  Then on Sunday I had aching SI pain the whole time I did this interval run, and by Sunday/Monday I was flared up so bad I could barely walk the dog.  The pain was in the SI joint, my low back and leg everything was tight and uncomfortable and needlessness to say painful.  I was convinced I was doomed, what I thought had been healed would never be healed.

When I went to see Dr. K on Monday, we discussed possible causes of the flare up and determined it was most likely related to stress.  This gave me encouragement that my pain was not coming back for good.  It felt a lot better after my adjustment, but I knew I had to take responsibility for calming down the flare up.  I iced my low back, then heated in the mornings to help loosen things up before I started the day.  I did all the basic exercises I learned from Dr K as well as a few from the run with no pain program I’ve been following (modified to suit me.)  By Tuesday morning I was feeling so much better and every day the pain lessened.

Yesterday I went into see Dr. Khavari and he had his podiatrist that made my orthotics there (from Colorado).  After watching me walk like a thousand times and checking my posture, they decided to add posting in my left foot.  They agreed the small, less than 1/4 of inch discrepancy in my leg length was to blame for the SI pain (aka since the right is longer it jams the SI joint as I walk and run.)  I had planned to take week off of running do to the flare, but Dr. K encouraged me it would be okay  (I don’t’ know if he meant that day, but thats what I did!)  Guess what?  I did 4 (super easy) miles pain free.  Actually it was a little funny because the arch of my left foot started to hurt, burn actually.  I ran through it to the 4 mile mark, but my head was having a panic attack.  Stupid hormones, won’t let me recover right, I’ll never have a pain free run, I’m so broken… all those fun things your mind tells you when you are upset.

Took my shoe off,…. “oh crap, FALSE ALARM IT’S JUST A BLISTER”

Then the endorphins set in, I ran all 4 miles without pain and without medication…am I normal again?  I think the answer is yes but I remember when I thought that was impossible.  Mr. Hungry would say to me “you’re going to get better, don’t give up.”  I finally am getting better, I’m able to do the things I love like run safely and happily… minus the blister….