Loss of coordination in leg - Official runner's dystonia / focal dystonia discussion thread

have you considered getting a cheillectomy?

I've been dealing with something like this since March 2010. I really hope someone is still reading this thread.... I'm 23, 5'10'' female.

The pain started behind my knee/calf area, doc thought it was a calf strain, never had improvements with pt. The pain then moved to my hip (all on left side) After about 4 months a saw a good sport's chiro who did ART... he thought my IT band was a big problem. The pain did go away but my left leg felt sooo weak, like it was just dragging along. I tried to get back into running but developed shin splints on my left side then my foot would be on fire after running, then my shin would hurt. I could barely run as it was.. I had no power in my left foot.... THEN about 3 months ago my left leg started going numb when sitting and I had shooting pains up and down my leg with lower back pain... they thought it was sciatica/herniated discs... nope, spine looks perfect in mri. So they did steroid injections into my SI joint and my piriformis muscle... still no improvement. I ran about 2 times and the strange thing is ONLY my right leg gets sore and its the only one that burns up a hill... its like my injured left left just isn't working... oh and I'm having pain at my hip flexor in my quad area, pain/tingling in my knee. I can't sleep I'm in so much pain, its always there, tingling, pain, different all the time. Does anyone know what I can do? Who I should see? Right now I'm working with a spine specialist.

stretch the crap out of your hip flexors and lower back. strengthen your abductors and hip extensors. get an arthrogram...

for those of you who've had bi-lateral hip tears, were the problems occurring full force in both legs, or did you find out that even your "good" leg had the problem when you got an mri or mr arthrogram?

I have been trying the exercises that hillrunner suggested over the last few days. I can hardly hold it for 10 seconds on either side. If TDF is still around I'd be interested in hearing how the shot worked and what you've been up to in your treatment.

Need Help also! As I posted earlier, the posts on this thread lead my wife to a University of Michigan Sports Med in Ann Arbor and they did the procedures talked about on some of the posts. After an initial visit, they set up an appointment for an injection of cortisone into her hip labrum. After not being able to run outside for almost 3 years (a treadmill, elipitical, and exercise bike were the exercise routine) because of the problem in her right leg, she way able to run again! Not 100%, but good enough for up to 30 minute runs of soft surfaces (hard surfaces were still problematic). She was able to bring her leg through more normally, instead of having to "pull" her leg and foot forward. The foot didn't drag as much - you could actually hear the difference. And she was able to feel like her foot would go down where she wanted it to, whether running or walking. So we had great expectations when the arthrogram was scheduled. That was done a few weeks ago. But the follow up with the surgeon did not turn out as we had hoped.

He said there was some calcification of the hip labrum, but he said he did not see anything that could be attributed to her symptoms. He did say that something must be going on with the hip because the injection made a significant difference. He asked a lot of questions and while he had a lot of experience with hip labrums, he admitted he had not seen something like this - where there is a loss of leg coordination - and the arthrogram results didn't help explain the problem. He suggested that a second opinion with another surgeon was an option, which we are going to do, but we don't have much hope the diagnosis will be any different. Anyone have ANY advice or suggestions?

I don't know what I have or what is the cause. I have been chasing this around for about 25 years and no specialist can believe I still try to run or have run so much with my stride.

I can't even figure out the actual cause of my imbalances. My left hip rotates in. The physiatrist says I have femoral anteversion and my left lower leg-foot rotates out (could be tibial torsion), and the podiatrist says I have Functional Hallux Limitis. I don't know why my knee is never sore as it works between the opposing twists.

So I have an awkward stride. I got orthotics for the FHL this summer and bumped the miles up to 50-85 miles a week, but my left hip got tighter and sorer until I could not run. I had to stop most running since the end of August.

I was supposed to have an MRI but got claustrophic and got sent to a physiatrist. The orthopedist and physiastrist said they didn't think it was a labral tear because when they moved my hip around it didn't hurt. I got the cortisone shot last month in the hip. While giving me the shot, he used an x-ray machine and injected a fluid. He was suprised to see what looked like a labral tear over the joint-not in the joint. The 3rd day after the shot, I did 8 miles and felt great hip socket felt tight everything around it felt loose. Ran 8 the next day and even felt better. I had no problems after running either day. It was the first time I had no body pains of some sort in 25+ years. I took a day off just to be safe and went for another 8 mile run. 30 minutes in, my hip couldn't run any further and I had a long cold walk home trying to drag my leg back. The cortisone was for diagnostic purposes and it seems like it diagnosed a tear.

The physiatrist wants to be conservative and sent me to PT. The PT is worthless and only doing basic stuff and is stymied by any question I ask or observations I share. I think he knows less than me or at least certainly is bored by his job and could care less.

I have only run a couple of miles at the most the last few weeks. The left hip is unstable and the left glute ties up after a a short bit of running. The physiatrist wants to order a gait analysis, but the insurance company keeps failing to respond.

I would really like to know if a labral tear (maybe years ago) can create the loose hip and then the funky stride. Or did the funky stride lead to the labral tear due to repeated poor mechanics? Or is it something totally different? I have noticed that my left fibula gets "stuck". The podiatrist and a former PT used to adjust my feet and I would feel great. I am trying to learn how to do this myself. The podiatrist said I could keep coming back to him to do this. I miss running and have gained too much weight since the summer.

OK lizardking, I looked at your previous posts and you made mention of your tight shin and loosening it up. What do you mean by the shin. I get tight on the outside top fleshy (muscle) area of the left leg. This seems to happen when my fibula is "stuck" and it throws my whole running pattern off (from toe to knee to hip and even the balance of my upper body). Is that area what you mean by the shin? What do you do to loosen it up?

I was so happy to find this thread and know there are others who are suffering through the same problem and disappointments that I am. Lots of good information on this thread, but there do not seem to be too many positive results for anyone. At least I know it's not just me though.

By shin area I mean the tibialis anterior. The first time I had this problem I got ART on that muscle and things seemed to go away pretty quickly. In this case I have been getting treatments for 3 months with no improvements.

I am naturally an over-pronator which puts a lot of stress on the tib anterior. My over-pronation has become much worse since this problem came about in my bad leg. It is hard for my to figure out if it was dysfunction in my foot that has caused all of the other problems, or if it is a problem in my hip that is causing my foot problems.

I am currently looking into getting some custom orthotics to do a better job of controlling the over-pronation.

I have also developed a lot of pain in my proximal great toe joint. I think it is sore from taking more weight than normal, because of the increase in pronation

Yes the upper tibialis is where I feel a tightness. I don't get pain in the 1st MTP joint, but when the tibialis is tight, that joint feels stuck or stiff, and everything up the chain is off. The insoles that I started using in the summer have a cutout under the 1st MTP joint to allow the joint to work properly (FHL). The inserts that I used in the summer were not specifically made for me (explained here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATrJQ72FVkA). These were suppposed to help the pronation over my bog toe. I may have overstressed the hip by running too much with them with a different stride. The orthotics I got in the fall were made for me. I can't tell if they help my running because of my hip.

I guess I am lucky the tightness in my hip and IT band doesn't completely shut down my upper leg. Most of my "control" issues are in the lower leg when planting and pushing off. I guess I will just hope that stopping the over-pronation relieves the tightness in the hip

very interesting, do you have any updates? I hope soon we have a success story of someone who had the labral tear fixed with the arthroscopic procedure.

Add me to the list. I strained my hamstring a while back and whenever I start to go under 5:30 pace my hamstring seizes up and my leg won't function right. I was running a half today easy for a tempo. I took a dump at mile 7 then ran a 5:19 to catch up to some people. About a mile later I almost fell down multiple times because my hamstring just wouldnt work right.. making my leg to not be able to "swing back". The first time it happened was in the beginning of October. I got to mile 4 of an 8k and it just gave out and I had to jog it in. I really don't know what to do about it, and I have track season coming up. I took 2 weeks off during the xc season and that didnt seem to help. I had electric stimulation on my leg 2x a day for 3 weeks or so and that didnt help. It sucks.

Miss Osage Country and fly137

Have you had any progress with the Labral tear? I'm convinced the problem has to do with the hip and hope you have been able to take the labral tear in the right direction.

I'm replying to specifcally comments/questions about "labral" tears but also to anyone on this thread who is having "loss of coordination."

Even though I had bilateral labral tears, only one hip was symptomatic and it wasn't even the hip itself. It was surrounding muscles such as my hamstrings, glutes, quads, hip flexors, and IT-Band..etc etc.

I was rarely in PAIN when running but it was not normal or functional running. During longer or faster paced runs I would start getting a hitch in my stride because my let leg (the bad one). It would feel like my glute and hamstrings weren't firing properly so it's almost like they stayed in a contracted state and wouldn't absorb the impact during my landing phase and when I went to push off again.

The feeling would come and go and I was still able to race at a decent level but I had a VERY hard time maintaining race because because it was exhausting trying to keep leg turnover with my left leg. I would start dragging it and I couldn't hip flex to the same degree as my right leg. I ran like this for about year and then it started turning into a biomechanical mess. I got a sensation of weakness than stemmed from my upper/lateral glute, down the lateral/posterior part of my thigh, and even past the knee and into the lateral/posterior portion of my calf. I couldn't even flex my foot correctly and this REALLY messed up my stride.

I ended up stopping all training because I was scared of getting injured. I knew at this point something was seriously wrong and ART OR Rest was NOT going to fix it.

I had symptoms when not running:

Anything I was sitting for over 10 minutes I would get pinching pain near my hip joint and in my hip flexors

I had a fairly constant nagging pain in the back of my glute; sometimes this pain was a duller ache and sometimes it was stabbing.

I began to feel symptoms all the way into my toes.

Also, I had a lot of lower back discomfort and stiffness and a slight dull ache.

I was checked for the most obvious problem (slipped/bulging disc in the lower vertebra). About 1 xray and 3 MRIs later the doctors were convinced this was not the problem. I had an MRI of my hamstring which was normal. I knew my pain wasn't true sciatica because it was more weakness than stabbing/electrical nerve pain. I did some research and called a PT I knew who was familiar with labral tears. He did a thorough phyiscal exam with me and sent me straight to an Ortho who has experience with surgical repair. He said I may not need surgery but he would be the doctor to see to get proper imaging done to see the tear. I had an MR Arthrogram of my left hip which was positive for a labral tear. But that's the EASY diagnosis. The hard part is finding out WHY I had the labral tear. It could be muscular or bone related, or both. Most of the time, this information doesn't show up on an MRI, the labral tear only shoes up 70% of the time.

The first Ortho guy I saw for this problem specifically get an x-ray of my pelvis and then took about 2 minutes to study it. He said he saw no FAI (femoral acetabular impingement). I was very skeptical because I knew he couldn't see every angle of my pelvis and femur from just an x-ray. So I got a 2nd opininon with a PHENOMENAL sports guy in NYC. He looked at my x-ray for about 5 seconds and pointed to where I had impingement. But he said I needed more imaging so we could get the full picture. He had me get a 3D CT scan of my pelvis and femur which showed in detail some pretty bad areas of impingement in my hip. He also showed me I have it in my right hip although it's not as symptomatic yet.

But to cut this insanely long post short, I have gone through with the FAI surgery on my left leg and the labral tear was worse than the MRI could tell him. He had to reattach it with numerous sutures. He also explained all of the radiating pain and weakness to me. Most people cannot feel damage inside of the hip socket because it's not a place that is filled with nerves or a lot of blood supply. The pain I felt was my muscles instinctually becoming tighter in order to protect the joint. It was causing a lot of inflammation and dysfunction. They were so tight they were irritating nerves around them (sciatic and gluteal). So I would get intermittent weakness down my entire leg.

The best advice I can give to anyone who is concerned about a labral tear is the following:

1. NEVER base your symptoms off someone else. It can present itself very differently in someone else.

2. Just because you are not in pain doesn't mean you are not doing damage. If you are running and it feels awkward/tight/stressful, STOP.

3. Do not just take one Dr's opinion on your injury. Do your research and get 2-4 opinions.

4. NEVER let a doctor tell you, "well everyone has some labrum damage so just live with it." That's a load of BS and is just a way to get out of helping you because it's a difficult injury to diagnose.

5. MRI's rarely tell ANYTHING. X-Rays rarely tell anything. Get an MR Artrhogram of the hip capsule. Also, I would HIGHLY recommend the 3d CT scan. It shows every angle of your bone and literally every detail. Your doctor can use it to review with you after he loads it onto a computer.

6. Not all forms of hip impingement cause clicking/popping noise. I had two forms of impingement in the same leg and had NONE of this noise.

7. A labral tear does NOT generally heal on its own, or with the help of prolotherapy. Now, I am not saying a surgeon may not endorse prolo to help with the recovery post-surgery, but I would not go wasting hundreds of dollars to try prolo over surgery. I was told that in many cases, prolo will make it worse because it's a natural way of causing inflammation which you DONT want.

Sorry about the long post, but I know exactly what it's like dealing with this injury and it is enough to drive someone insane. I'm sure some people on here have visited some wonderful doctors who probably have no idea what to recommend at this point. Personally, I highly recommend surgery because with hip impingement, you are setting yourself up for a decent case of arthritis fairly early in life. Also, if the impingement is due to extra bone growth, it's only going to keep getting WORSE.

If anyone has any questions or wants some contact information on a few really great surgeons/doctors I know feel free to leave your e-mails.

I might have some questions over the next couple weeks. thanks so much!!

runchip@aol.com

No problem.. I will e-mail you soon.

And I was just rereading my post, and I would like to say I do not mean to come across as skeptical about every Dr. I meet. There are some REALLY great doctors out there. Some of the doctors that I was frustrated with WERE really great doctors, but they were more about how many patients they could see in one day versus how thoroughly they were willing to examine me.

All I know is I have learned that if you are paying for someone to help improve your everyday quality of living and health, and they keep looking at their watch every 2 minutes while they are in a room with you, chances are you could do better with someone else. A rushed doctor might be able to help you with something as simple as an ankle sprain, but running injuries are almost ALWAYS more than one problem.

I am very curious to know how successful the surgery was...how well are you running post-surgery?

I have been dealing with a lot of the same issues that have been shared with on this post. I am a college runner who usually runs around 70 miles during the season. My bad leg is my left one. I will start running and for a few minutes everything is fine...normal. I get about 10 minutes into it and my leg starts feeling almost loose and all over the place. It literally feels like I can not get it in front of me in time. In my opinion its almost a whipping sensation to get it in front of my body. Like others when I run on softer things like grass I can "last longer" then when I run on the roads. I barely ran any cross this year because of this problem. I took a month off after cross to see if that would work and when I started running nothing changed (still awkward).Now I am starting track and thinking that it may continue to ruin things.

On the Doctor side of things I have tried some stuff. I first got a MRI of my hip with the dye and x-rays and nothing was found that was in september/October. during my month off I got a MRI and x-rays of my back and nothing was found again. So I also started working with a PT. Some of the things we have done seem to help but eventually I start having this trouble. Lot of band excersises and step ups and even weight lifting. Nothing has really worked or gave me the feeling like it would have positive lasting effects.

From what Neliah2507 said about his symptoms it sounds like I could have a laberal tear....(which I have thought for a long time but since nothing was found in my hip i had no case to base it on). Is there a possibility that I may have it and the MRI missed it? How often does that occure? again I also have absolutely no pain at all just not able to run does that corrospond with a tear? Should I get a second Dr. Opinion? Any answers or help would be awesome....I just want to run again!