HIPPITY-HOPE

Some of my friends are, let's just say it, totally sick of me talking about my bum hip.  Whatever.  I may refer to it now and again, but I'm sure I don't go on and on....do I?   Well, even if I do, the topic expressed out loud pales in comparison to the headspace in my own mind, for over a year, that it takes up!

I wrote about this before in the October 31, 2023 "Random Thoughts" post under the heading Gratitude.  Odd place to put it, but I was sincere about being grateful it's not life-threatening and that I have a good Physical Therapist.

UPDATE:  (You've been lying awake at night worrying, I'm sure...)  It's getting better!  I think!  Pretty sure!  Sometimes!  🙏🏽

Last week, for the first time in forever, I was able to go for three walks!  This used to be routine.  Our 4-mile loop was a "must do" 2-3 times/week, sometimes with a shorter 2-3 mile neighborhood walk in between some days.  I have not been able to do that for a long time.  Hell, I have been barely able to hobble around my house some days and going up and down our many stairways was very, very hurt-y.  But it's been a whole week of "better"/"doable" and most days with NO Ibuporfen/Tylenol on board, although just this morning Hub explained to me for the millionth time over the decades why some meds are not a BAD thing, but a helpful thing.  I am getting a glimmer of understanding, much to his relief.  

So why am I getting better? Well, I've been working my butt off on my PT exercises!  Wait!  Not working my butt off, but working more butt on!  All those connecting gluteal (butt) muscles that attach to the hip had grown so weak over the decades of crooked posture due to my scoliosis that they were hanging on for dear life trying to keep me upright, and have been in a spasm of effort for the past year -- at least that's when they called my attention to their plight.  There are several layers of gluteal (and other) muscles all around the hip area and they all have to be strong and working with ease to be useful and pain-free.  Also, I discovered one of my legs is one centimeter shorter than the other, also causing that ever so slightly tipping over posture that strains my connecting muscles.  I now wear a "lift" in one shoe.  It made a huge difference.  

So those walks...the pain still comes on a bit after about a mile and a half.  Which is perfect since that's where one of my favorite coffee houses sits on the route.  I peel off and grab a mocha while Hub continues on on.  He comes back to join me.  We have a nice little coffee date and make our way back to the car.  I get 3 miles in with that pleasant break half-way; he gets 4 miles and all is good!  On the neighborhood walk there are a number of hills, so I take my cane (Ugh, yes, cane!) per my P.T.'s orders until hills aren't so challenging.  But I still get a nice 2 mile walk with Hub before I head back home and he finishes his 3-4 miles alone.  (Alas, no coffee shop!)

I am so happy things are looking up.  I have been deeply discouraged, but suddenly it seems I've turned a bit of a corner.  Nothing is absolutely healed yet, but progress is noticable.  

I think I have finally found a good collection of treatments that are coalescing to make a difference:  Physical Therapy weekly, Yoga twice weekly, Hub's almost daily magical massage on the hurt-y part of the hip to loosen the knots of tightness,  20 minutes of using an ice pad after walking, 30 minutes of infrared heating pad while watching TV.   

And even on days when it was most painful I kept moving.  Hobbling around and dragging myself upstairs by the handrail were not great, but somewhat necessary to be mobile.  What was not necessary was to try to ignore the pain.  My body was telling me to take care and my mind said, "NO!"  My PT told me NOT to power through real pain.  She started me with gentle exercises, few in number, only a couple times a week.  She said to just try and do the exercises, but not push over a minimal pain threshold. She encouraged me to be up and walking for at least some period of time every hour.  She impressed upon me that SITTING is the WORST thing we do to our bodies.  (Have your heard?  Sitting -- being sedentary most of the day -- is the new smoking.  It's that harmful.)  

Aches and pains will slow us down, but shouldn't stop us cold.  If so, find out why.  Get help figuring out what to do about it.  The fact is, many of us have these types of challenges as our bodies begin to rebel against a lifetime of being ignored and taken for granted or just surprising us with ills and ailments we never could have predicted.  It's a challenge.  We all have had some experience with this at various times in our lives.  We are not bionic or indestructible at any age. Be loving and gentle with yourself.  I was NOT gentle at the beginning of this journey.  I pushed myself too far and thought I had to ignore the pain and power through.  I made it worse.

So now, I speak kindly to my body.  I send healing energy to my hip.  And I am highly motivated to stay active -- meaning able to walk over various terrain and incline/decline, sit, bend, squat, balance, reach, lift.  So, I am doing what I can to regain and build new strength.  I thought I was in great shape until this hip thing humbled me.  Now I know I can't take anything for granted and I have to be gentle with my body.  I also have to keep moving.  Plus, between months of limited exercise, holiday sweets, and all those rest stop mochas I managed to gain 10+ pounds over the past several months.  Grrrr.  Now I've added an intention and a plan to drop the extra weight -- weight which, wouldn't  you know it?, also adds to the strain on the muscles causing my pain.  Health and fitness is not about being a gym rat.  It's about just living as well as we can.

I follow this woman on FB and Instagram who does easy movement exercises in her kitchen -- Google her or search her on FB/Insta: "Easy Fitness Over Fifty".  She's fun, funny, and has a pretty house.  I tune into her a few times a day and bust a few moves for a few minutes.  It doesn't have to be a lot.  But it has to be something.  Here's to staying upright, mobile, strong, balanced, flexible...easy, right?  Not so much, but we are all in this together.  So if ya gotta talk about it, I'm here to listen.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Photo Credit:  www.pixabay.com

I HURT

 Mostly we try to put a happy face on our public-facing sharing.  Sure, me too.  Highlight reel stuff.  But in this blog I've also tried to be vulnerable and revealing about things I'm guessing most of us have experienced in some shape or another.  I'm told that I often put words to others' feelings and experiences.  High praise.

So here goes....Is this you too?

My hip hurts (substitute your own hurting body part).   This started some months ago, an occasional thing.  I took a couple of Tylenol and mostly ignored it.  But then, over time, it got more common that after a walk, or a yoga class, or too long in our reading chair that hip pain became more than an annoyance and downright painful.  I took a couple of Ibuprofen instead of Tylenol. I ignored it.  Mostly.

Over the past month or so, there is no more ignoring it.  One night after a 3 mile treadmill session with various incline settings, I could barely walk. I mean stooped, hobbling, hurting barely walking not able.  I took Ibuprofen AND Tylenol and started to worry.

After that I noticed that upon every rise from the chair, my first few weight bearing steps were a hobbling limp with a little "ouch".  I realized I'd been ignoring the occasional sore knee that throbbed out of the blue for no reason while just sitting there watching TV.  And every morning I woke up with a sore, stiff neck. Is it possible to "sleep wrong" every night?!  One morning it was so bad that for the rest of that day and the next, I couldn't turn my head.   What was going on???

I am married to a retired Rheumatologist.  This joint pain thing is right in his wheelhouse!  He did an exam that resulted in sort of a shoulder shrug since I didn't scream upon examination, but there was perhaps a wee bit of "maybe?" around the possibility of osteoarthritis in the hip.  I called his colleague, a still-working Rheumatologist, and scheduled an appointment.  She did a full and thorough exam and ordered x-rays for neck, hip, and knee as well as lab tests requiring about a pint of blood.  Nothing.  Nadda.  Well, not totally nothing -- maybe a wee bit of arthritis in the neck, maybe a wee bit in the knee, maybe a little something-something in the hip, but none of it adding up to stiffness, soreness, and hobbling around in pain on a regular basis.

So...I left with a Physical Therapy referral since the whole thing might also be a mechanical structural response to my lifelong touch of scoliosis.  Back in the day, like 60 years ago when I was diagnosed, they didn't do anything about it.  Just "Oh, that's a thing; good luck!"  So I've spent my entire life being a bit crooked and compensating with musculature that crooked-ed in the  opposite direction.  I guess my body is now saying "enough!"  At least that's my understanding at the moment. 

Maybe PT will teach me how to sit and stand and walk so this annoying ouchiness will subside.  At least I hope so.  Because I am very humbled by this and would prefer to go back to feeling invincible.  

At least, that's the view from here...©