Tuesday, June 05, 2012

Poke Poke Poke

Well here we are, day 2 of some R and R and a short post about my latest fun at the MD's office. Lucky for you I really think this stuff is sorta cool, and while i dont love seeing blood and needles I was laughing when the MD and her asst kept asking me " Do you faint? are you feeling ok?" Thankfully i made sure I was hydrated in the am so that the blood draw was not painful for either of us.

So long story short, and gosh I may still write a longer post about this bc I really think this is a great treatment and I myself have seen this work, on me! Lets hope it does the trick now.
I was in and out in an hour and off to work. We started with a diagnostic ultrasound where they looked at my hamstring tendons. You can look at the Ischial Tuberosity and see how the hamstring attaches, if it looks "clean" or a bit "messy, frayed" etc..luckily i had nothing that looked really suspect. I am not good at looking at US, I would rather see a MRI or CT or Xray but you get the idea. She marked off 6 spots. YES SIX!!!

Luckily she didnt look too much at my glute or at my shoulder  or...bc I am sure there was stuff that happens with age. But anyhoot...so she numbed me up good. This hurt a little bit, but really it wasnt too bad, sorta "prick, burn..." and we wait. Waited about 15 minutes in which time they took about 2 tubes of blood from my very slow running blood. Low BP and low resting HR! Then they go spin that and MD and I chatted about WHY so many women have high hamstring issues!!! Not just triathletes, but runners too. She treats this alot and we do know this:
Its a combination of lack of glute strength, and in triathletes, we THINK, the aggressive position we re in for so long. Less aggressive TT positions, as you know, are more quad dominant. We are set up to use our glutes and of course our hamstrings on the pedal stroke. That is what gives us much more power, but i do know i love my new position, but i have thought about making it less agressive since i did NOT have this issue last year.

When the plasma is done, ( and I have some nice looking plasma!) they put that into a thicker needle and inject it into the sites that are numb. That hurt a little bit, and she did say the needle was thicker bc plasma is thicker. And from the looks of the dots on my butt/hamstring that needle WAS thicker! Ha. But so far so good. I must be tuff bc my butt aches but nothing like the pain inflicted by Josh Sandell who i think mistakes me for his NFL players. And of course I cant finish this post without referencing my triple nerve block i had in february which was in my hand and i tell you, it was a 20 out of 10 on the painscale.

One person told me PRP hurt more than child birth. And I have no kids, but i was insulted for all of you that have kids, I mean really. I did hear that the NFL players cry like babies when they get this and they have to be scheduled  late in the day so that nobody is in the clinic. Ahh, the psychology of pain.

So some downtime this week. I can swim  and I can do some light walking, and next week some power based riding. Meaning EASY. Coach Jen said "thank GOD at least you can move!" and I said "yes Otherwise i was going to get my Rx for Prozac!"

There ya have it. Eyes on the prize: Sept 9, 2012....
General Entry for Ironman Wisconsin Closed


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I really hope it works. One of my swimmers has been getting it to help postpone surgery for a hip impingement. (She is scheduled for surgery this summer, but she says the injections have been a lifesaver over the past year in terms of allowing her to swim, ski, and run a bit.) Now I feel like a wimp for whining about my stitches from having my "brown spots" removed last week.

Danielle "Pedergraham"

Damie said...

oh goodie! i can't wait to hear how this works. keep the details coming!

Molly said...

Glad to hear it went well and that you are already recovering well! Somehow I had no idea you'd signed up for IM WI again!

Jennifer Harrison said...

YAY, time to heal fast!!!!!!

elizabeth said...

You know, my dad has all kinds of ankle issues the past 2 years and he is an Equine Surgeon so he does some crazy treatments on himself. He also uses Ultrasound daily on horses and he sent an US to an ankle specialist who couldn't read it. Apparently US isn't that popular in human orthopedics. Who knew? And I'm glad you handled the pain fine, I've heard similar things about NFLers and NBAers crying wolf during simple procedures. ;)

Angela and David said...

You are one tough lady no doubt....but can you handle Zach tomorrow? See you soon!

Lindsay said...

Interesting! keep us posted on how it turns out, and be patient. I don't have a lot of experience with this, but I have had 2 patients that have gone through it with success!!!

Anonymous said...

It'll totally work and it does NOT hurt as much as childbirth, ha. When I had mine, I walked away with a tiny sized band-aid over the area and that made me feel pretty silly. And it'll work better/faster since you didn't wait too long. Heal up fast and let's do some rides on the IM course!