Scarred

According to statistics, the human body is 60% water, but I think mine might be only 55% with the other 45% being scar tissue. To put it nicely, I’m a mess. I do, however, feel like I might finally be on the right track to figuring out the source of all my injury problems over the past few years. Dr. Rich at Oasis really seems to know his stuff and has been much more helpful than anyone else I’ve seen up to this point. After yesterday, I think he really might be on to something.

The visit started with him doing a few tests and a normal treatment. I told him how my hamstring had been cramping up when I tried to run, so he checked it out and didn’t find any problems, which is basically what I expected. He said the cramping was probably a protective mechanism and was actually a fairly common thing the body would do to protect the hip. He also felt like my hip pain was a case of bursitis and that it was settling down.

After that, he asked me to go outside and run so he could observe me. As logical of a step as that might be for a doc to take, I’ve never actually had anyone watch me run before. I did a few 75m or so out-and-back jogs, after which his response was, “Man, that’s ugly!” I asked him why, and he said that my upper body on the left side was almost completely still. He said my left arm swing was very limited, and since your body counter balances itself top to bottom, the lack of movement up top was causing my right hip to kick out with every foot strike. That would certainly explain the repeated hip strains. He had me do a couple more jogs, trying to focus on swinging my left arm, and I still had little to no movement, indicating that it was just locked up.

We went back in his office and he asked me if I’d ever hurt my left shoulder. I told him I didn’t remember doing so, but he said it definitely needed to be freed up and went to work on it. All I can say is WOW! The ART he did to it was way more painful than anything he’s ever done to my legs. He also worked on my upper abdomen and adjusted my back in several places. He said I had an amazing amount of scar tissue built up in my shoulder and abs and actually said he wasn’t sure he’s ever seen anything like it. He said that aside from me being able to use it, my shoulder had all the characteristics of someone with a frozen shoulder.

At any rate, he had me go outside and run some more, and while it was better than the first time, I still didn’t have the sort of movement in my upper left body that I should have. He said it will likely take a while to break up all the scar tissue and for me to relearn the coordination, and he gave me some new retraining exercises to help work on it. I go back again in a little less than two weeks.

So that’s the story. It seems like more pieces of the puzzle are starting to fall into place. For a long time I’ve complained about pain between my shoulder blades towards the left side. I also had a guy I used to run with tell me that I needed to swing my left arm more. I blew the guy off at the time, but maybe he was on to something. It makes a lot of sense. I just hope that between breaking up the scar tissue and doing the coordination exercises I can get everything functioning like it’s supposed to again. If so, my body should counter balance itself like it’s designed to rather than destabilizing my right glute. I have no idea how I got into this mess (other than years of abuse) and no idea how long or even if I can get out of it, but at least I have a plan now. Onward!