Where my tear is located
Three months ago I was out on a light morning run in St. Edwards Park with some other local runners, doing a few laps of a 5-mile course. Somewhere after the big uphill I felt a bit of a pull in my right hamstring. We finished the lap and stopped to meet up with some other runners and I could barely walk. I bagged on the rest of the day and went home to ice the leg. I rested it most of the week, iced and took ibuprofen. Five days later I tried to do a light 2 mile run and couldn’t do it.
Off I went to the doctor to get this checked out. Grade Two hamstring strain was the diagnosis and I was told 4-8 weeks of recovery and sent off to physical therapy. The PT consisted of a lot of balance and squats along with stretching, electro-stim and ultrasound. About two weeks in the pain moved from my hammy up into my butt and hips to the point where I could no longer even sit let alone run. A friend recommended a different sports clinic so I decided to give them a try. At Elite Sports & Spine I started getting A.R.T. (Active Release Techniques) and Graston treatment and within three weeks was actually feeling a bit better to the point where I was told to try some light running. Running didn’t really seem to make things worse and I slowly built up a bit of mileage, I even did an event. Once I got to the 5-mile mark though I just could not seem to go any further and the pain started up again.
12 weeks in we did an MRI and found that I have a torn common tendon on the hamstrings near the insertion point. This appears to be the worst possible place for a tear in the hamstring, there is little to no blood flow and it is deep in there so direct manipulation is pretty much impossible. I also have inflammation at the glute insertion points and some degeneration in the hips, explains a lot of the other pain, it was probably worse a few weeks before. Bottom line – this thing is going to take a long time to heal. No more running for who knows how long and no real hiking even for an extended time. The good news is that it has been healing and that a lot of the other pain areas have diminished. I also now have glutes that actually fire, better one leg balance and much more strength and flexibility in my hip flexors, all of which will contribute to the hamstring healing. I can even do squats finally!
Since getting the report though this week has been pretty tough. Doing a lot of searching on the internet about this it appears this injury has sidelined people for 6-36 months and some never seem to heal from it. A few are hopeful though and describe treatment protocols very similar to what I’m doing that did ultimately heal the problem. A post at the Golden Trails Blog described exactly the symptoms I’ve been dealing with and gave me some hope since it only took 5 months to start running again. An article in Runners World gave a similar story and another protocol for recovery.
My plan for the next few weeks is to do a bit more research on this and look into the various treatment options that are available. This includes getting a second opinion on the MRI from the original orthopedic doctor on his recommendations and looking more at PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma) treatment. This sounds pretty freaking painful to me but maybe a few minutes of getting poked 3″ deep into my ass a few dozen times is better than the constant pain of sitting too long.
In the meantime I’ll bike, walk and continue with the stuff I’ve been doing – balance/strengthening work, A.R.T. and laser treatment. I’ll fish a lot more and our yard is going to look amazing since yard work has become one of my primary outdoor activities. I’ll be at runs doing registration, course marshalling and photography. I’m trying to come to terms with not running the rest of the year and hoping that if I do all this work that I’ll be in much better shape when I start running again in the future.