When I started this journey to the Dopey Challenge, I had a plan. A good plan, if I do say so myself. The plan was run a half marathon every couple of months to keep up a good mileage base and to have some options to submit for proof of time for corral placement. I signed up for the Flying Pig Half Marathon in Cincinnati. I knew a hilly course like that wouldn't likely allow me to PR but it was mainly for fun and I'd have at least a time. In order to hopefully get a faster time, I signed up for the flat Chicago Rock N Roll Half Marathon for July. And then I injured my hip and that effectively put an end to all those lovely plans.
So if I haven't been running or writing about running for the last 3 months, what having I been filling my days with? Being electrocuted and stabbed mostly. Since the doctors can think of nothing more to do than take x-rays (2 sets), MRIs (2 different ones) and bone scans, I've taken matters into my own hands and been going to physical therapy. And that physical therapy has included little things called dry needling and electrical stimulation. Let's break these fun activities down a little further.
Dry needling. Even the name sounds horrific. This is when my therapist takes his thumb and forefinger and poke around in the general area where it hurts. I'll react from time to time when his pressure hurts. When I really jump due to the pain, that's where he presses harder and then sticks hollow needles into the area. First you feel the initial prick. "That's not so bad," you think "This won't be too awful." Then once you relax for a micro-second, there's the heat sensation and then the pain that can be so severe that it takes your breath away. That process gets repeated. And repeated. And repeated. Once, my therapist had to leave the curtained area to get something. While he was gone, I happened to lift my head up and look in the direction of my hip and saw that I still had 3 needles sticking out of butt cheek. I almost passed out.
Electrical stimulation usually follows the dry needling. This is exactly what it sounds like. My therapist puts some device on my glutes and sends an electrical current through it. This is where it gets weird. The electricity causes my muscles to move without me moving them. I can't control it and I feel the muscles twitching. Once, my therapist was doing his normal stimulation of the muscles in the gluteal area and the muscle twitching went all the way down to my ankle. I saw my therapists' head snap to the side like he was at tennis match to see my twitching all the way down my leg. "We must have found a good spot," he says. I can barely walk when I get off the table.
Sounds like fun, huh? Despite the pain, I do think these treatments have helped get me back in my running shoes so every PT appointment when my therapist asks if I'm up for the needling, I say "short term pain is worth it for long term gain" and let him commence with this torture methods.
In the last few weeks, I've been able to finish a back-to-back 5K and half marathon as well as my first training run in 3 months. I'm cautiously optimistic that I can start working back up to a regular training routine. Dopey is in 5 months and I have a lot of work to do. So bring on the needles.
One day, as my therapist was doing the dry needling, this sentence came out of his mouth: "I'll put one more [needle] in and then I'll shock you."
The things we do to be able to run.
