On Tuesday I went to see Leanne my physiotherapist about my
hip. The upping of my level of training
has brought the pain back like a beast, and I needed to figure out ways of
working around it over the next while.
She did some traction work and suggested that we try dry needling. Now like the next person, I have somewhat of
a fear of needles, but not enough so to prevent me from getting things done
that I know (or think) will benefit me – heck, I let my roommate do acupuncture on me a few times
a week when I was training for the Disney marathon in 2009! But last year when he had awful shin splints,
Jason had Leanne dry-needle him, and his reports of how much it had hurt have
me all wound up. I grudgingly agreed to
the treatment, but I must admit that my guts were in a knot in
apprehension. It was my understanding that whilst similar to acupuncture, this procedure involved a more invasive approach and use of bigger needles. Yay!
She started with my right
glutes, and yes, it hurt a bit – you could feel the needle as it entered a trigger
point, and then there was this sharp “quiver,” which I’ve since learned is a
local twitch response (LTR), which is an involuntary spinal cord reflex in
which the muscle fibers in the taut band of muscle contract. The LTR indicates
the proper placement of the needle in a trigger point. The theory is that dry
needling that elicits LTRs improves treatment outcomes. Both Jason and Leanne are believers, so I figured I'd give it a try. I wimped out of the complete process
though. When she was done with the
backside and had me flip over, I baulked at the thought of having my hip flexor
and groin done. In my mind that was
going beyond my pain tolerance and so I decided to pass. The pain had eased somewhat and the area
around my hip did seem looser hours later, but that could have been a placebo effect.
Wednesday morning I woke up and instead of my usual pain and
stiffness, the right glutes were pain-free and it seemed all the pain had transferred
forward into the hip flexor area.
Coincidence? I’m going to suggest
not. I really think the needling
helped. In the afternoon I went for a
deep tissue massage, and I swear Monica awakened the pain beast just as he’d
fallen asleep from the needling the night before! So I woke up this morning in god-awful
pain. I actually skipped my sled workout
and stayed in bed with a heating pad, hoping to loosen things up a bit. I dunno, it’s almost noon and things haven’t
improved much – I’m seriously leaning in the direction of copious amounts of
drugs to get me through tonight’s paddle.
Gonna go for a walk and see if that helps loosen things up any. I really do need to find a way of working yoga into my process. The stretching and strengthening that comes with it could only help.
No comments:
Post a Comment