Attack Mode

For the last two weeks, I have been on attack mode. I am doing all I can to get myself healed up and it's been enlightening. I have had 4 doctors visits (3 different doctors) as well as 2 PT sessions. I am very hopeful that with all the advice, knowlege, and work that things will start progressing quicker.

First, I had the visit with Dr. Michaud who measured all my angles and joints and gave me somewhat of a confirmation of things that aren't right and what to do to get stronger. A few days after that I went to Dr. Dannenburg and he did manipulations on my knee-popliteus and on a cuboid bone in my foot that was causing my foot to be stuck and not work or move correctly. I also had PT work each week where I am getting graston technique done on my popliteus and surrounding muscles as well as getting taped around my knee as a proprioceptive thing to get my body and mind used to a better positioning of my knee. Today I had 4 trigger point injections into my glute medius. I will go back every two weeks for more for 2 or 3 more times.

My goal 2 weeks ago was to run only a mile or two each day. I got in 7 straight days of running before my glute medius tied up after one run and things fell apart again. The good news this weel was the physiatrist wanted me to stress my glute medius before the injections this morning so I ran 10 miles on the treadmill last night. That was my longest run since August 2010 and if felt good to go that long.

So I have had work on my feet by the podiatrist, on my knees and popliteus through PT, and on my glutes through the trigger point injections. That should cover a lot of things and hopefully everything will play nice together. I have also been doing all my PT work to get my hips strong. I will say that when I run on the treadmill, my hips stay aligned and straight which is very different from how I ran before surgery. Everything from the knee up looks a lot better than before. It is just the left leg rotating out that looks bad. It had appeared to be pointing out about 40 degrees  last month, after seeing Dr. Dannenberg it improved to about 20 degrees, but if I pushed off more on the foot, it got down to about 10 degrees. That tells me I can improve on things.

Despite all that work, I have also written back and forth a bit with Martha Peterson this week and learning more about somatics. I found a few of her videos and postings online a few days before I went to Kenya this summer and some of her exercises helped keep my pain at bay during that trip. I got her DVD, but didn't start working on the movements until recently again as I was letting my hip heal from surgery. She also just published her book Move Without Pain which I have been reading and enjoying very much. Somatics deals with sensory motor training and reteaches the body how to move properly. I enjoy the movements and their effect and they don't "hurt" my body like yoga or stretching often can. I will have more to say on this at a later date, but her book and video are top notch.

Here is a new hip movement from Martha's soon to be released DVD "Pain-Free Legs and Hips" .