Hamstring Injury – Nervous System Realignment


So, I was back in my doctor’s office on Thursday for another treatment on my hamstring. If you remember my post from last week, I talked about the electric shock treatment that I was given. They administered this treatment only to my left quad.

During my visit on Thursday, they did a tag team treatment. Through the acupuncture needles they administered an electrical shock to both my hamstring and quad. Watching my quad contract feels weird when I realize that I am not the one doing it. For those readers that might be wondering, there is no perceptible pain from the treatment.

The current alternated a pulse between my hamstring and my quad so only one muscle group was actually contracting at any one time. The quad contracts were very easy to see and feel. The hamstring was not so much so. The entire treatment lasted about 10 minutes.

When I think back to my last hamstring pull, I made a number of mistakes. This time, I feel that I made some better choices. Instead of continuing to run lots of miles, I cut my mileage to nearly nothing. Instead of taking over the counter medicine along with using ice to reduce the inflammation, I sought help. Note, I stopped using the anti-inflammatory medications on my doctor's recommendation (while the anti-inflammatory medicine reduces the swelling, it also impairs the healing), but I have continued to ice my hamstring (20 minutes on/off) several times per day. Would my hamstring have healed even faster if I had stopped running, well, I don’t know for sure, but I would like to think so. But completely stopping running was never something that crossed my mind. Not really. 

Am I back to normal? The short answer is no. There are still months of work of hard work to strengthen both my quad/hamstring back normal levels. But at least, I can feel like there is a light at the end of a very dark tunnel.

 Rainy day thoughts,
The Cool Down Runner

Comments

Popular Posts