Search Results for: astym

ITBS Recovery Weeks 1-5

February 26, 2013 · by Ari ·

I never intended to write posts recapping my injury recovered, but then again, I never thought I’d be out for 5 weeks going on what feels like forever. These posts will mostly be for me–to see my progress on paper, so that I don’t feel like “OMG the world is over! I’m making ZERO improvements. Woe is meeee.”, but hopefully they will also help someone who might be dealing with the same thing. But remember, I’m not a doctor, so if I say _____ works for me, you should not take that as me giving you medical advice. I mean, I love to give advice and tell people what to do, but I’m not even close to being qualified to do so, unless you count being bossy as a qualification.

The backstory (abbrev version): I developed ITBS (probably) in mid December, and it got like a billion times worse after my durring/after my marathon.

What is ITBS? It looks like IBS, but it’s not. I’m not sure which one is less fun, but I’m glad I don’t have both, because that would be confusing. Essentially, my IT band is inflamed, and when I bend/straighten my leg, it rubs up against my knee cap causing a a feeling I would compare to someone stabbing me in the knee, but that’s only a speculation. Here is an article with more info if you’re interested.

What’s been happening: I got an xray and an MRI, and everything came back clean. I’ve been taking prescription anti-inflammatories, doing pt, seeing a chiropractor who also does acupuncture and ART (active release therapy), sports massage, yoga, lots of stretching/foam rolling/strengthening.

Progress so far: After the marathon, my pain level was off the charts. Walking, and bending/straightening my leg at all seemed impossible. The limp is now 95% gone, although on bad days, walking is still painful. Things like squats feel fine now, but lunges don’t. Elliptical and bike still hurt–especially later in the day. If I walk too much, or do too much of anything, after I sit down for a bit, everything kind of tightens up, and bending/straightening becomes really painful again.

This past week:

Monday: Physical therapy. Exercises/stretching/astym/electrical stim.

Tuesday: Dr D. (the chiro/acupuncture/art guy) & yoga. Dr. D did all of those things he does. He also found a really tight spot in my calf that he thinks might be contributing to the problem. He dug fingers and needles into my body, and I grunted. It was cute. Yoga and most strength training are pretty much the only work outs that don’t effect my injury. I’m trying to learn to love yoga. It’s a process. I enjoy the poses, and the part where my muscles get tired and I sweat, but I am not a huge fan of the mental part. Shocking, right? I’m also not a fan of savasanah. All I can do is think of the million other more productive things I could be doing opposed to lying on the floor trying to “relax”. It’s not my style.

Wednesday: Massage. Not the fun relaxing kind. She did some heat/icey thing on my calf where Dr. D had pointed out that things were messed up. I may have yelled out some 4 letter words in the process.

Thursday: PT & yoga. New harder exercises/stretching/astym at PT. Yoga was yoga.

Friday: Dr. D + 15 min on the elliptical. Dr D did his thing, and I was actually feeling pretty good. I’d had a couple really good days in a row where WALKING DIDN’T HURT. I was so excited. I tested out the elliptical. I had done it as a warm up in PT on Thurs for 10 minutes, and for the first 2 it hadn’t hurt, then it only hurt a little. I was hopeful. This day it hurt the entire time, but in a dull way, not a stabbing way. I was happy.

Saturday: 25 min elliptical + 30 min strength training. My knee didn’t hurt for the first 10 minutes of the elliptical, then was again just a dull pain. I went straight into some strength training, felt great, got super sweaty for the first time in a long time, and was on top of the moon. Then, that afternoon the pain was back, and hurt like it did 2 weeks ago. Total bummer.

Sunday: Rest. I wanted to test out spin class, but my knee still hurt when I woke up, so I took a rest day, and moped about how my progress earlier in the week had only led me to taking 1o steps back.

This week I plan to do less. Dr. D suggested that I may be over treating, and that I keep pushing the irritated area, but never give it time to actually heal. I am also going to try out a more running-specific physical therapist. It’s tough because I’ve been going to the same place for a long time, and had a lot of luck treating my achilles tendons, but I feel like I need a second opinion from someone who actually runs. I’ll let ya know how it goes!

Weekend Ramblings

February 9, 2013 · by Ari ·

1. You guys, I feel so spoiled. For the past 2 weeks, life has been pretty much about me. All my friends and family came out to support me at my first marathon, then I had all this birthday celebrating happening, and I just kept getting the best gifts! I don’t know if I can go back to real life now. It’s going to be so disappointing.

2. My favorite birthday gift was probably from Steve. And it isn’t my iPhone. Nope. You see, I knew I was getting an iPhone, and I am a girl who needs surprises, so I ~~politely hinted~~ insisted I also get a surprise present (because I’m a brat) that only costs about $5. Not only did he deliver, but it was like themostperfectthingever. Every time I go to Target, at least one of my hours there is spent playing with the Bop It. I’ve wanted one for ever and ever. But how is a girl in her 20s supposed to justify $15 on a toy labeled for ages 8+ when I obviously need to save up my $15s to buy one ruffle of a Lululemon running skirt? Well, the answer is marry the perfect man.

3. You know how I don’t really like candy? Well that was before I discovered pretzel M&Ms. I am beyond addicted, and it is totally a problem. I may never recover. The addiction is well worth it, however, for one of the recipes I have coming soon…

4. Yesterday, something REALLY COOL happened!! I’ve been reading Iowa Girl Eats for over a year, and every week I look forward to her Friday Favorites–drools-worthy food pics, cute puppies, and super cute clothing that makes me wish I had a better fashion sense. Well, yesterday I open my reader, and there at the bottom of the Friday Favorites post are MY CUPCAKES!!! My favorite ones I’ve ever made 🙂

5. This weekend, I am going up to Flagstaff with my mom’s side of the family. When I was little, we used to go a lot, and we always stayed at the same hotel. This year for Christmas, Steve and I made reservations for the 5 of us to go spend some time together. We’re staying at the same hotel, but they used to allow dogs (hence the appeal), and now they don’t. Poor Winston and Clemenetine are not happy about it.

6. I know I said my favorite present, was the Bop It, but I wrote that part before I actually got my iPhone. I am over the moon for it, and I don’t think I will ever stray for the rest of my life. I can’t stop playing with it. I’ll be in a social situation, but just want to take out my cute new li’l iPhone. It also takes pretty great pictures for a phone.

After an hour of trying to get “the right shot” with these cookies, I decided to play with the iphone camera. I’m actually pretty impressed. Sure, it’s not the macro lens, but my instagram is about to get so much better!

7. I think I may be at a point in my life where walking around looking really weird is becoming embarrassing again. Like, I turned 28, and I’ve reverted to my teenage years. I have this huge ugly bruise down my left IT band from astym at physical therapy, and it’s been in the 70s here so I’ve been wearing shorts. Well, yesterday I kept catching a glimpse, and then I was sure everyone was staring at me. Suddenly, I felt like a teenage girl wearing last season’s jean fade. Luckily, we’re expecting to go back to winter, so I can go back to jeans until I look slightly less freakish.

8. I really need to go shopping. I have this collection of gift cards just…waiting for me. I love shopping, but I hate spending money. You’d think it would be better with gift cards, but I always want to save them for when I “need something”. Well, that’s not really the point. This gift card to my very favorite stores (Anthropologie, Lulu, and Hobby Lobby–shocking, right?) cannot sit here and burn a whole in my wallet. Time to buy some pretty dresses, running skirts (for when I can actually run again…WAH!), and cute things for my house that I absolutely don’t need, but really want. I’m going on an all day shopping spree–who wants to join me? 😉

9. I really want to start watching Smash from the beginning. I kept half watching every single episode, and now I have no idea what’s going on which makes me pretty much the worst musical theatre person ever. John says I need hulu plus, but I’m cheap. I just need them all on Netflix, like ASAP.

Trigger Point Dry Needling

February 23, 2012 · by Ari ·

If you’ve been reading for a while, you may recall that I have had chronic achilles tendonitis for the past 10 years or so. It kept me from running for a long time, until I decided it wasn’t going to anymore. I tried to be super smart about it–I only run 3 times per week (most weeks), and try to never run consecutive days. My body just doesn’t particularly like it, so I try to thank it for putting up with me and carrying me to a few finish lines. I also try to ice every day that I run, and for a while my body was holding up great, but when I started to feel more significant pain, I started going to physical therapy.

You may remember when I wrote my post about the Astym. Let me tell you, that was fun. Every session I was like “KT, do I get astym today?!?! She would be like “Calm down, Ari. I know you love astym, but sometimes my soft, gentle calf massages are so much better.” Yeah, astym is not fun and it is super painful, and so are KT’s massages, but it really was helping. The last time I got it done, I was ~~whining and crying like a pathetic baby~~ taking it like a champ, and one of the other therapists suggested I get the dry needling. He said it would hurt less than astym. Ummmm, you want to stick needles into my legs and shake them around?!?!?! I politely said no thank you, and have skirted the subject ever since.

I’d actually been considering it a little bit since. They explained that it’s essentially like hitting the “reset” button on a muscle that has been tight for a significant amount of time and hasn’t been cured with massage and foam rolling. My calves have two settings–tight, and ridiculously tight. Finally yesterday as KT was massaging and said “You need a needle in here!” I nervously agreed.

They handed me a special consent form, and I immediately got even more nervous!

One of the risks is lung puncture. I mean, I’m no anatomy expert, but that sounds basically impossible while needling my calf. However, it still scared me! I signed, and tried to prepare myself. I begged KT and Ashley to hold my hand, but KT was on photography duty and Ashley, well, Ashley our friendship is over. Except when I need you to make me run fast. Then we can be friends again 😉

Matt explained that he would be putting the needle in four different spots. He also told all sorts of awesome jokes like saying “Oh I’m so glad I finally get to do this on someone!” Great, Matt. Thanks for that.

The first one actually didn’t hurt at all! I barely felt it. He asked how I was doing and I was like “Great!” Hah. You see, it’s not the actual needle going in that hurts–it’s kind of similar to acupuncture where the needle is really thin, but this one isn’t hollow. The part that hurts is when they shake it around in there. The first spot was on the outside of my calf which is less sensitive. Then they did one in the middle and all of the sudden it felt like a charlie horse! Holy crap. It was not fun. The third one was even worse! I asked for a little break before the 4th one, because it was rough at this point. They basically make your leg muscles spasm, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t find that to be the most pleasant feeling.

The last one was so weird! It was down closer to my achilles and it made it feel like my foot was asleep! You know the spidery tingling feeling when you stop on your foot when it’s asleep? That happened and it freaked me out! They said it as normal, and before I knew it, I was done. If it works nearly as well as they say it will, it’ll definitely be worth it in the end. The only other part that is less than fun (other than, you know, the 4-5 more weeks I have of this) is how sore I was yesterday! They warned me that I would be, but you know that feeling when you’ve had really bad charlie horses during the night, and the next day your calf is so sore that it’s hard to walk? Is that just me? Anyway, that’s how it felt. You should have seen my trying to teach choreography. Yikes.

Have you ever experienced TDN? Any other crazy physical therapy or other medical things?? I think things like this are so interesting, and I’m always curious to know what other people have experienced!

Scraped

November 21, 2011 · by Ari ·

Hello friends! I am so glad to be over the lame-o sickness that got in the way of my work outs the past two weeks. This morning I woke up and it was a little drizzly out which is actually a lovely treat here in Phoenix. I only planned on running 3 miles, but decided to change up my route and went just under 4. I tried to focus on just letting myself run this morning, not worrying about speed or impressing anyone with my time. I’m still a little sore from my consecutive runs this weekend, so it was nice to just get out and not really think about anything 🙂

And guess what!! I got my Garmin in late September. My first run was September 26th and today I hit 100 documented miles!!!!

Whoot!

After my run I hurried over to my physical therapy appt. On Friday she mentioned that she wanted to have one of the other therapists perform a scraping technique on me. What? SCRAPE? That sounds awful. I asked if it hurt and she played it off like it was maybe minor pain and then said “Well, some people bruise.” Bruise???? So when I got there today, she informed me that ready or not the scraper was coming. Oy!!

There were these two new big football player guys there today. While I warmed up and stretched they were cracking me up. I don’t even remember what they were saying but they were loud and they were funny and I was amused. That is, until just before the scraping when they said “Oooohhhh you’re being scraped???” Then proceeded to scare the crap out of me about it. Thanks, guys. I wasn’t already nervous enough. I informed them that I no longer liked them and they told me to join the club haha. I asked one of the assistants to photograph the scrape sessions so I could give you a visual. They all thought I was kind of a freak, but I’m kind of used to that 😉

See that tool in his hand? He's going to use it to scrap the crap out of my leg and foot.

Here I'm pretty sure I was actually crying a little. Don't judge me.

"Is it over yettttt?????"

The technical term for the procedure is Astym (A-stimulation). The theory is that it releases scar tissue and promotes healing. I even found a video on youtube, except the video doesn’t show the patient jumping out of their seat in pain. They must not have legitimately been doing the therapy.

I had it done on my left calf, achilles tendon and the bottom of my foot–that was the weirdest spot because it tickled and hurt at the same time. I am one of those people that twists and laughs uncontrollably during a pedicure. This was not a pleasant tickle though. Not at all. But, to be honest, if it even gives me the hope of being able to run, dance, and live my life without my tendons giving me pain, it will be so worth it. I haven’t been without pain since high school, so it would really be incredible.

Have any of you ever had this done? What’s the weirdest medical thing you’ve ever experienced?