The Injury Post

I've been holding off on posting this until I was feeling a bit better in the hopes that less pain would make me less bitter and thus, less whiny. :P Being in constant pain, especially when it involves your back and abs, which you use for EVERYTHING is really no fun. I have a new found sympathy for people who live in chronic pain. I was miserable after a week of it, I can only imagine weeks or months or a lifetime.

In any event, here's the rundown. I mentioned that the chiropractor thought I'd strained my QL. Before I went to see him, it was a minor issue that was nearly resolved and like I mentioned in an earlier post, he was confident he'd be able to help me work the rest of it out in a few visits.

Unfortunately what happened was very different. I'll spare you the details; the short version is that after 3 visits I had to admit that he was not helping me in any way, but had in actuality turned a minor injury into something severe. I could not get out of bed in the morning, or sit or stand for any length of time, or walk my dogs without fear of the next time someone would pull on a leash causing a new wave of pain in my back. I didn't do myself any favors by going to Crossfit a couple of times in the midst of this either. Once I realized this, I went to see my doctor, who prescribed painkillers and sent me to my old friend Ian, the physical therapist.

I'm now a week into my PT appointments and while still in pain and on Rx painkillers, I'm much improved from where I was prior to those appointments. I still can't take a deep breath without pain (I really look forward to the day when I can!), but I can do things like open a door, pick up my purse, or change the station on the radio in my car without wincing from the pain. So what's actually wrong with me? An issue with a joint in my spine (inflammation & no mobility causing strain on my muscles), as well as a strained abdominal muscle and a subluxated (partially dislocated) rib. It's actually the latter that's causing me the most pain right now.

So obviously I haven't been to Crossfit for a while, and won't for at least a few more weeks. Right now, we are still focusing primarily on working out the issues and resting/icing so I am not supposed to exercise at all (nor have I wanted to). This feels like a huge setback to me after I worked so hard to get back into shape, but it's mostly frustrating because this shouldn't have happened. So what's the moral of this story? When in doubt, see a physical therapist. I would like nothing more than a redo on the last few weeks so that I could make the decision to see him when my back started bothering me. But, what's done is done and what's important is that I am slowly, but steadily feeling better each day.

If you've hung in this long, thanks for reading. Hopefully my next update will be a really positive one. Feel free to send me some good thoughts for exponential healing so I can get back to beating myself up asap!