Tuesday I had therapy. I was still in a lot of pain from the chair incident at school but Cam wanted to do some manual therapy. I started out icing and heating--ice for my knee and heat for my groin. Just as Cam was about to start manual therapy, Dr. Shiple came over and asked if he could do an ultrasound of my groin (he had a cancellation). The ultrasound was painful and Dr. Shiple had to move my leg around to check for any tears. Luckily, no tears. However, I have 2 calcifications in the soft tissue. Calcifications can be extremely painful and seeing as I was due to have manual therapy with Cam it was good to know where they were. He made sure to avoid those areas during the treatment. I managed to survive manual therapy without any tears (which almost never happens). I did NO formal therapy exercises which I was excited about. Instead I iced for a long time and talked to Amy and Lindsey.
Jackie (Dr. Shiple's assistant) came over with new knee braces for me to try because my brace is not supporting me well enough. When I tried to lift my knee off the table to put the brace on, I experienced knife stabbing pain in my groin. After trying several times to get the brace on (I was in tears at this point), Jackie told me to try it on later when my hip had calmed down.
I sat on the table a little longer trying to ignore the groin pain and when it finally seemed like it was calming down I went to get off the table. Bad idea! Immediately the knife stabbing pain came back and I literally could not move my leg. I called Cam who came over and told me to sit back on the table with my legs off the side. This was a less compressive position for the psoas and would hopefully ease the pain. In a couple of minutes I got off the table and started to crutch towards the front. The slightest movement in my pelvis and I experienced the stabbing pains so I made sure to crutch extremely slowly--barely moving. When I finally made it (probably 6 minutes later) I started talking to Amy and Edna to give myself a break. In mid-sentence I started to experience the knife stabbing pains in spasm form and turned around to find Cam. I don't know if it was the sound of my voice, facial expression, or lack of color in my face but Cam came right over. At this point I could barely breathe because of the pain and I felt sick to my stomach.
Cam tried to get me on the table which was close to impossible as I felt like someone was taking a saw to my hip. When I finally got to my back, Cam stood with his knee under my leg and held it in that position for 15 minutes. Any movement and I experienced stabbing pain--and at random times it would go into spasm. Eventually Cam had to return to his other 2 patients and finish their manual therapy so he stacked pillows under my leg.
After lying there for awhile I had to get up to go to the bathroom. Amy tried to help me but we failed. I still couldn't move without excruciating pain so we called Cam over. It took another 5 minutes to get me off the table and I was hysterical the entire time. When I finally got to my feet I nearly collapsed. Thankfully Cam and Amy were holding me up. I felt so sick and dizzy that there was no way I could crutch or even use them as crutches. I ended up sitting in a chair with my leg on a scooter. Amy pushed the scooter while Cam pushed the chair to the mens room (it was closer). What a site to see!
After the bathroom trip I was sitting in the chair with my leg on the scooter when I experienced another spasm. This nearly threw me off the side of the chair. Cam came back over and I told him I couldn't sit and needed to change positions. We decided that getting back on the table was the best option. Once again, it took forever just to get me onto the table. At this point the spasms were more constant and I found myself unable to control my breathing. I was so dizzy/sick/dysfunctional that you'd have thought I was taking some serious drugs. Cam spent the rest of the time (before my dad arrived) holding my leg.
My dad came to pick me up (as clearly I was not allowed to/going to drive) yet we were faced with another challenge-how to get to the car. We had tried the chair sliding method--that was way too painful and after almost falling off the chair earlier it wasn't an option. We tried the crutches but I physically couldn't move. I felt so weak that I would have collapsed (Cam and Amy were holding me up again). Finally Cam decided that he had to carry me to the car. Greg came over and they both "football carried" me out.
The car ride was terrible! I was in so much pain. When I finally got home it took forever to get me out of the car and into my room. For the rest of the night I laid in my bed with pillows stacked under my leg. I managed to take small naps in between spasms and spent the rest of the night like this. Thankfully (seriously THANK GOD) I woke up in the morning with NO spasms. Although the pain was still there when I moved my leg-at least I could control it.
The scary/frustrating part of this story is that neither Cam, Dr. Shiple, nor myself have ANY idea what or why my leg went into spasm and why I couldn't move it. We have a bunch of theories but will never know the truth. I say it's scary because I have no idea what triggered such intense pain and I NEVER want to experience that again. Words cannot even begin to describe the amount of pain I was in.
Hi Jill, I see that you have calcificaiton of your psoas tendon too, I just wrote a post on hipchicks about it as I just had a mini open scope 9 months post PAO/open dislocation and that was one of the things found. I know that you are having ongoing groin pain after your PAO and wonder if you have similar problems to me (details on hipchicks thread). I have had those awful spasms much earlier in my recovery and they hurt like nothing else, so i really hope that is the last of it for you. Sam x
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