mzassenhaus

lisawray – sorry to hear of your trouble, but glad to hear you’re on the mend. The body is so resilient, so while I don’t have a lot of advice or knowledge to offer, I do believe that all wounds heal with time, and that if you’re careful, you will eventually return to the things you love. hang in there!

as for me, I was notified by lisawray’s post so I thought I’d post an update.

After writing, I visited a number of other doctors, namely a surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery here in NYC. this doctor took one look at my imaging and told me that the tears the other doctors were seeing were ‘normal wear and tear’ – and that I was not in fact a candidate for surgery. He said he thought my pain was coming from a super tight IT band, and that I had intense inflammation/bursitis as a result. He gave me steroid injections on both sides and sent me on my way.

Since that time, the pain has died down, and through a ton of experimentation, I’ve figured out that the pain is coming from my Piriformis. Why the Piriformis is upset I have no idea, I’m still working on that. I know it seems like a totally different part of the body – but when things are on fire, the pain is referred all over – and it took a bit of putting out the fire to identify the source. I treat it with (1) trigger point therapy with a foam roller – squashing out the knots in the muscle, (2) Stretching, via yoga, and (3) I found that for me, strengthening my inner thighs really helps alleviate the pain – so I do squats.

I am still trying to figure out the imbalance that causes this – but it feels more clear that it wasn’t a dual labral tear after all – no matter how many (two) doctors thought it was…