AHA!!!

Peace in yourself. Peace in the world. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Since 1996 I have had issues with my hip, but never knew why or how it started. Now, I might actually have the reasons behind the why or how!

Just before IMC I went to see an Orthopaedic Massage Therapist. I swear he is a holy being. He didn't ask a ton of information, rather he asked me to march in one spot. So I did. Then he said 'Stop, and don't move.' He then began to assess my body positioning from the feet all the way up.

As he was doing this I was doing an internal check. Hmm, my glutes and hams are engaged and I'm just standing here. Yup, I am leaning forward a bit.

No disc problem?! Oh thank you Universe above. YEOW!!! The yeow happened when he poked exactly where he thought the pain was coming from. How did he do that?! Needless to say, the look on my face told him he was correct, if not the vocal outburst.

From his assessment, it looks like I have an SI joint issue, which has my muscles on my left heaving up my hip, thereby getting my right side muscles to do all the work. This would include my erector spinae, glutes, hamstrings, hip flexors, and quads. Not to mention all the teeny weeny little muscles and tendons hidden in there. Phew, that's a lot of work!

No wonder my right side was always in pain. Well, actually not always. The fun actually started in 1996 when I took up running, the first time. I was training for a 10k. Things were going well till one day my hip felt like it dislocated. All together now 'OW!' At the time I was in college so went to see the physio there who uttered the words 'You may never run again.' At the time, I was none to fussed.

Flashfoward almost 10 years. I take up running again. This time though I'm also weight lifting. Every thing is hunky dory! Or is it. Turns out the moment I stop doing strength work my hip does the wobbly, pain, glute spazzing thing.

This has been cyclic for the past 4 years. So now that I know my body is not working very well on the left side and the right side is taking the brunt, I am trying to get the right side to let go, via massage therapy, so the left can start pulling it's share.

I've seen a lot of people about this, but atlhough there seemed to be valid theories, no one every fixed me. This time though, she whispers so as not to jinx it, it seems like things are working. The process is a mighty painful one and a little scary as I have this second Ironman race deadline in a couple of months.

So now I have a gal, J, who is working on me big time to get things to shift. The doc comes in when I get there, assess things, then tells her what to work on. It's at this point she apologizes for the pain she is about to inflict, bless her heart.

And pain she does inflict. I almost dropped an F-bomb the other day but turned it into 'FFFFUUUDDDGGEELLLLAAA' or something similar as I tried to breathe through the agony.

The good part is that even though there is excrutiating pain at times, and I do not embellish here, it feels like my hip is trying to go back to where it should be. This, in turn, should get my glutes to stop being in continual spazz mode and hopefully I will be normal again. Well, not normal perhaps, that would be boring, but my bod might be.

Oh, I have to tell this story, one time J had a patient who used to make farm animals when they were getting worked on. Seriously. Like mooing noises and clucking and what not. This totally cracked me up, till she hit the next 'spot'. I waited for a while then as she was really cranking up the pain factor I exhaled then said 'CLUCK!' Poor girl nearly fell over. You know, for a tiny thing she really is very strong.

This last session was particularly eye opening. We were trading stories and I was saying how long it's been that I've noticed this problem. I even remember in 2000 noticing that my right erector spinae (long muscle along spine) on the right side sticks up when I do straight leg deadlifts, but the left was flat.

Well, we start to talking more and I tell her of a story when I was rollerblading. To try and keep this psuedo short, it was in Stanley Park, I couldn't figure out the brakes on my blades (first time blader) and I was going downhill into an area that was fenced off. Oh ohhhhh...

So I did what any sane person would, I decided I'd do like in skiing and just fall to stop myself. Problem one with this theory, there was only concrete around and I had gathered some speed. Problem two, I went off the curb into the parking lot like a ski jumper, rather than lowering my centre of gravity.

I managed not to kill any tourists that happened to be milling about in a group. I think my very loud 'AIYEEEEEEE' got them to part like the red sea in order to have little ol' me fly into their group then land very loudly on me arse. OOOMPFFFF. Then I laid there as they all hovered over me speaking some sort of language that I didn't know. I laughed in order to make sure I didn't cry in front of them.

Oh the pain. Had I not been wearing wrist guards, my wrists would have both broken. They were the second thing to hit the pavement after my arse. Which, I figure, I managed to crack the tailbone. At the time I was an aerobics instructor and for months I couldn't do crunches or anything where I was resting on my tailbone.

I finished my little 'tale' and J said, when was this? I thought for a moment and said, oh likely 93, 94. That's when she said, I bet that's what started this all. Apparantly if you crack your tailbone it can heal crooked and twist things in that area and can knock you right out of whack eventually, especially over 16 years. Really??!!!

So it appears the mystery as to how this all started may be solved. Which is good and bad. Good because I knew something has been up for a long time, but didn't know why. Bad because it means once I get things in alignment I will have to keep vigalent to ensure things don't shift back. Ah well.

So kids, the moral of this story is always wear a pillow on your bundakadunk if you are going to go roller blading. Better yet, get rollerskates. They are much easier to stop in!

Peace out my lovely friends!