23 years old and living in a nightmare

I

Ivan John Chin

New member
I didn't know what section to put this in and if a mod wants to move it they can or ask me to. I just really need some help and advice. I know most people scroll and don't like to read so I have broken this up to make it easier on the eyes.

I have been stuck in a pain cycle for about a year and have seen pretty much everyone in the medical community. PT,chiropractor, deep tissue massage, acupuncturist, orthopedic surgeon, knee specialist, podiatrist and soon an ART specialist.

Here is what happened
-back in July 2009 I ran
into another player in a soccer game and heard my right toe pop and for about a month and a half I walked on my injured toe abnormally which really messed up my right leg and caused my right knee to have pain as well.

So I went to go see a chiropractor around august 2009 and she worked on my right leg and did not do anything. Then I went and saw a Physical therapist and a knee specialist and had an MRI done on my knee and it still did not go away but my PT did figure out that the problem/pain was coming not from my knee but from somewhere else.

I had my chiropractor do a full evaluation again and it turns out my psoas muscle in my right hip is really tight and will not release.

During this time I had to shift my weight onto my left leg because my right leg was so messed up and this of course cause more problems with my left leg and left side of my lower back.I think this also messed up my SI joint because it is popping/clicking when I lay down.

And after a while I was having so much pain in those areas that I had to shift weight onto my upper back when laying down and that has given me muscle knots and upper back and right and left arm pain as well.

Now it is July and both my legs hurt and feel messed up and tight my
left lower back hurts and have a lot of muscle knots in my butt area which hurts a lot when I sit down. And I even have some right knee pain because the muscles around my knee are pulling on it in the wrong way. The way it works basically is when I start to walk the muscles in my legs begin to tighten up and the longer I walk the more pronounced the muscle pain/tightness becomes.

Despite lots of stretching the muscles don't seem to release or relax and go back to normal. I also have muscle knots in many parts of my body including now the upper back, shoulders and arms.


Can someone please offer some advice and please help
 
I first injured my left knee when I was 14. Tore the ACL, the medial meniscus and the medial collateral ligaments. No one believed me. Back then (1966) it was believed that young women could only have injuries like this if they were professional athletes and I wasn't. So it was assumed I was exaggerating the pain way out of proportion. No MRI's back then...just x-rays. Mine you, the injury occurred when I got caught in a "minor" rock slide while hiking the mountains of Colorado. A "major" slide would have killed me.

So I limped around for 2 years and watched my formerly healthy body get literally "all bent out of shape". My right leg hurt, my back hurt, my neck hurt...everything hurt. And no one could tell me why.

Then one day I met an older physical therapist and he told me the key. When you limp from any kind of injury, you start a cycle of messing up the muscles throughout your body. He told me whatever happens, don't limp.

I finally got the needed surgery but all they could do was remove the torn meniscus. Too late to fix the ligaments and they didn't repair ACL's back then at all. I used my crutches and tried as hard as I could to walk normally on them. When I got off, despite the pain, I became very conscious of my walk and didn't limp. It took a lot of time but eventually, the muscles started to straighten out and the pain all over stopped.

When I've had to have knee surgery(I've had 14) I used crutches or a cane and walked as normally as possible, never favoring either side. It has started to come back on occasion and I just have to remember...don't limp, don't favor.

It may not be much of a suggestion and you can throw it out if you want but once you favor one side over another, you atrophy one side and strengthen the other. And then you start to do it with other areas and before you know it, you have very uneven muscle strength all over the place and the weak muscles scream from lack of use and the over used muscles scream from over use.

Three years ago I broke my neck and suffered paralysis on my left side and the key once again to getting that use back was not to favor the left side. I had to use both sides at the same time in PT. They would passively move the bad left side but when I exercised, I had to do both and the same amount of exercise and type on both sides so my body would remain balanced. And speaking of balance, I had to do PT for that too as my left side had little and I had to get it back. Again, did both sides to rehab one side...no limping aloud.

So maybe if you just become very conscious of your gait and purposely walk normally with no limp and no favoring of any limb, you can retrain your body and brain and get rid of all the imbalances and pain with it.

Just a suggestion............Jenny
 
I concur. Anytime you injure a foot or leg and have to compensate by limping or changing your gait, its going to have a negative impact on your body. I had two foot surgeries in the early 2000's and all that walking in a sugical shoe after and limping from pain before thru my whole other hip out. It took years - yes, years - or massage therapy, stretching, etc to get it all back to normal. Deep tissue massages hurt like the devil but work wonders....
 
yeah I started with just the right leg messed up, then had to shift weight onto my left leg, then had to shift weight onto my upper back,

I don't think I need surgery but acupuncture, deep tissue, and chiropractic work don't seem to work. I don't appear to be shifty my weight at all and yet the muscles in my left leg and left lower back are clearly messed up and it has something to do with my hips, psoas, and SI joint on my left side just can't figure out how to fix it.

then after that's done I can put the muscles back to normal with stretching, yoga, etc.

thanks for sharing Jenny it's a shame how you have to pay for sexist Doctors

and yes Titchou deep tissue almost got me back to normal I was so close

But I don't know what to do now and almost had a panic attack a few minutes ago out of sheer frustration.

I have a few moves left to make before I give up.

My goal/game plan would be to:

first use the Release Technique as taught by Larry Crane to release the pain, muscles and emotions related to this nightmare.

second find and use of an Egoscue clinic to get the muscles back to normal and get rid of pain.

third use Deep tissue massage, yoga, pillates, swimming to get fully back to 100%

I am also currently looking into Active release technique and Live cell therapy to get rid of scar tissue build up in my toe and return it to normal.


any resources, information or help would be appreciated even if it is constructive criticism or if you want to confront me about something that you think is to up in the clouds thinking that would be welcome as well.

I will report back with my progress/problems


cheers
 
Sorry to hear bout you problems, if your walking slightly off to get away from the pain then the rest of your body is going to go out of alignment, I don't no about the rest of your prroblems, but your si joint maybe stuck or hypermobile I.e loose... go to an osteo to find out
 
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