Is there a users group for the injured here? (Read 856 times)

There is one, but it's inactive - "On the Bench." No new posts since June.

There probably isn't a serious runner in here who hasn't been injured to a greater or lesser extent at some point. Post the details here. There are some very well informed folks, some are even physicians (cough...Trent....cough...). Sorry to hear about your injury.

Post the details here. There are some very well informed folks, some are even physicians (cough...Trent....cough...)

Thanks for the replies folks. Alrighty. Maybe somebody has an idea. Here's my situation. Sorry it's gonna be long: Background: I've been running off and on for 11 years with my main difficulty being a bunion on my left foot. My last injury was about one year ago, a soleus tear on that left side. This time, I think I caused this injury myself, by padding my left shoe to alleviate bunion arch pain, thereby throwing off my gait. I feel like a fool and even knew at the time it was a stupid thing to do. But it was only for my last few runs. Note: I should mention I've never had lower back or hip pain before. And the week before this started I noticed all kinds of tweaky injuries and started wondering about shoe mileage. Both pairs I use only have about 250 m. on them. Aug. 18 - The slight soreness I'd been noticing at the top of my legs grew worse on the left side. I did a little 2 miler and that night had sharp pains in my left groin. I stopped running altogether. Aug. 22 - I notice a localized painful spot behind my left hip and nightly pain has blossomed into elaborate radiating hip/leg/lower back pain that stays with me all day. The sore spot is a strong gnawing ache, waking me up. I embark on a stretching/yoga, RICE campaign, thinking maybe piriformis & sciatica. After 2.5 weeks of this, it seems to go away. Week of Sept. 1st - I do a 3 m. walk and two 2 mile runs only noticing a slight sensation in the hip area at the end. Week of Sept. 8th - I do a 2 m run, 3 m walk and another 2 miler in a row and that night I'm right back to square one. So I've been to my family doc and since their range of motion exercises couldn't reproduce the pain she figures it's soft tissue related. The lower back pain is gone, thank heavens, but I can't walk for long without burning pain at the top of my leg and my groin pain is still coming and going. The pain in my butt is still there too. Some amount of pain is constant. The PT exercises they gave me make it all hurt more, so I've stopped doing them. I'm sort of afraid to stretch at all and I'm waiting to hear if insurance will cover an MRI. My doc believes they have a case to go straight to that rather than the usual X-ray, bone scan route. Bit of a mess, huh. Thanks for reading if you've gotten this far.

When you say "hip", what do you mean specifically?

Well, therein lies the rub. Sometimes it feels like that entire quadrant of my body hurts. It's the posterior hip. There is an intensely painful spot behind my left hip; say in the top gluteal muscle. The pain seems to pierce right through to the front of my body. When I bend to the right side though, my whole lower back on that side seems involved.

Do you have tingling or numbness?

Mercifully, no. My doc did mention compartment syndrome in her laundry list of "possibilities" though. I was shocked to hear that, as I thought it was most commonly in the leg proper. But honestly, the list was long and very vague.

Where in your leg does the pain radiate?

All on the left side: down my buttock, along the crease of the groin and sometimes in front and behind my thigh. I was experiencing pain along the adductor muscle but that seems to have eased. When I'm doing a bit of walking, I feel a burning pain at the top of my left femur - but I have complete range of motion without pain bone-wise. The pain is all up and back behind me radiating down and forward. My doctor said she was initially thinking bursitis, but the pain is not reproduced by pressing the bursa. If I lay on my side to sleep the pain becomes a gnawing ache that's difficult to tolerate. Even sitting still now the sensation is like a toothache type pain in that whole area. It's doing a number on me. Sometimes I swear I feel it in my ankle which makes no sense at all.

Wingz, I think your guesses are quite appropriate. My initial self-diagnosis was piriformis syndrome and those symptoms still apply. -- In fact I just did another round of research on piriformis and found a reference to groin pain in relation to it. When you combine the gamut of painful sensations sciatica can create, that is still my guess too. My plan is to go back to what I was doing before that worked: a series of stretches and yoga moves specific to piriformis.

Thanks - I really appreciate you checking back in on me!