Time to see the doc...

Friday, August 6, 2010

I called Nilesh Shah, an old friend I’d coached in high school who was now a sports med doc working for Summa Health in Hudson. He was still running himself and working with athletes every day. I told him how I was due to head for the Adirondacks in a week…he was used to athletes calling for help a week before they were scheduled to compete and absolutely had to be ready. “Come on in at 3 p.m. and we’ll see what’s up,” he told me.

We went through the 50 questions to try to get a clearer understanding of what had led to my malady and did a physical examination, probing for pain and checking for range of motion and flexibility. Practically nothing with movement caused a response…a good sign he said…likely not a break or stress fracture. “Let’s do an x-ray just to be sure, though,” he concluded.

The x-ray confirmed what he’d suspected. The hip was weak leading to an imbalance in my running and an inflammation of the muscles in the area. He did point out a little arthritis in my low back…maybe the reason I’m laid up once or twice a year with pain, but I forgot to ask him more about it since we dove into the hip work I’d be doing to get it healthy over the next 7 days.

It amounted to Allieve, ice, stretching and some strengthening utilizing a resistance band. I was actually in such pain at the moment, I couldn’t imagine doing anything exercise-related with my hip in the near future. I knew I wouldn’t be running, but the thought of doing nothing was, well, freaking me out.

“Can I ride the bike?”

“Should be fine. This thing is inflamed with weight-bearing exercise, so give it a go,” he responded.

I thanked for helping out on such short notice…it pays once in awhile to have coached such a diverse population. I drove home and decided I’d try cutting the grass to loosen things up…and call that my workout. I needed to do my landscaping job in the morning and needed to know if I’d be able. It actually didn’t feel too horrible, so maybe work and a ride tomorrow would work.