Anyone ever had a "Sports Hernia" aka: "Sportsman's hernia", "Gilmore's groin", or &quot

Here is someone who was operated on Meyers this spring:

Play of the day (so far): WR Kevin Curtis beat DB Joselio Hanson on a long post pattern and caught a 70-yard TD pass from Donovan McNabb. That prompted the fans to break into the familiar cheer: "E-A-G-L-E-S!"

I am 13.5 weeks post op and I have made substantial progress lately.

I am now doing crunches alot

2x20 middle

2x20 left

2x20 right

I am doing pushups

I am now also weightlifting 3x per week....bench press, triceps press, standing curls, upright rows and as of today the one i feared most (Lat Pulldown)....

I have no inflammation in the last 3 days. Usually when I push into a new activity I get the next day discomfort and then back to normal on day 3....

Very psyched about that.

After doing my AIS routine I feel like a million bucks. i am convinced this is the best thing for someone who was hurt as long as me. It is the best stretching known in athletics. I know my pelvic muscles and legs were altered/shortened/weakened because of 4.5 years of dysfucntion. That has been the last thing for me. Getting the muslces on the opposite side to loosen and AIS is doing that.

Still have the Plantar Fasciatis but it is down to a level 4 pain instead of 8 and my MCL is about a 3 where before it was a 8 also.

My AP surgery is getting stronger by the day and there is no activity I fear. Well I fear running but because of my foot....

I have also lost 36 pounds since surgery and can actually see my toes....LOL

Myself and JC have gotten Nike Free sneakers which are "barefoot technology" which means is the closest thing to being barefoot. My AIS guy says that will strengthen your lower body....foot muscles....calf muscles...quads and glutes because you do not have a stiff shoe restricting your movements. Day 2 with them and i can feel muscles being used i never knew existed. He also said many of my inner leg injuries are from not being able to roll through on pronation and having a weak vastus medialis.

Anyways....in another 8 weeks when these stretches take hold permanently I will be running. I am shooting for a 5K on thanksgiving....and i am no runner.

Congrats Albert...

I am getting much stronger also with no pain, but the inflammation and tightness is really frustrating... lots of issues with glutes, hip flexors, hamstrings and adductors. I've started working on crunches, side planks, and various other core exercises with a ball. I seem to be having a lot of problems with my feet hurting when I walk and I've bought three different pairs of shoes... two pairs of running shoes and one pair of work shoes -- all hurt my feet...

Do you have a link for the shoes you bought? Those sound like they would work for me... the only shoes that don't bother me are the Tevas sandals that I have because they have very little restriction.

Den-

Google Nike Free Reviews.....Takes some getting used to. I am on day 3 and new muscles that are activating are kicking in. I was injured so long that i have many opposite side muscles that are shortened/tight/weak and that is why i sought out Active Isolated Stretching. He suggests to me to only stretch and strengthen for 4 weeks until i build a good foundation until i do any repetitive type trauma....running, walking, etc. So i am only doing my biking in short bursts.

Inflammation is the enemy in this surgery as well as tightness. I was talking to JC that you have to be mentally strong because you know when you push it and try new things it will set off the inflammation and tightness....but as time goes on my recovery is less and less.

i.e. I have lifted 5 days now and have 0 inflammation now. I had it the first 4 times...However, i expect it tomorrow because it was my first time doing lat pulldowns and that is a direct RA stretch....

Jc and myself are also having foot issues. i think it is this simple....

#1 - Our bodies are smart and will adapt to any dysfunctions

#2 - When we get operated on and put back to neutral our muscles are resistant because they have been unnaturally shortened/weakened.....and need to be re-educated. we are also dealing with post-surgery trauma on top of it all.

Also the pelvis is the fulcrum of all activity and can not be rested like a knee after surgery which you can take weight off with crutches..

Den...keep up the good fight..

Today was the 1st day i had no symptoms at all.....No soreness...no pulling....no inflammation....nada...'

And today was a big workout day

2.5 mile walk

45 AIS stretch routine

30 minute circuit weights

20 minutes functional band excercises

pushups

planks

120 crunches...(60 am 60 pm)

also did 1 hr bike ride

and 2 hour hike...(it was supposed to be 40 minutes but i got lost around the reservoir)

The only thing that hurts is my heel..

It is hard to believe cuz i am hammering it now....Also am doing lat pulldowns

Also a sidebar i am not lifting alot of weight..

I am only benching with 185 lbs on the bar...real slow and strict for 15-20 reps

Also am off the indocin for 5 days now....

I think i have turned the corner

My opp side tightness is gone too...I think the muscles are loose from AIS and getting stronger with FMS

Day 3 of the Nike Free sneaker. At the end of the day outer parts of my legs are sore from having to stabilize. They say this will happen for about 2 weeks as leg muscles adjust to the barefoot feeling.

Awesome Albert!!!!!....Dr Meyers did say about the 3 month mark you should be feeling good..........For the rest of us we just have to keep battling thru Rehab and time to get there

As for the the Nike Free's etc....At this point I ahvent worked up to the Nike Free's yet ..What I did was I went ot Dicks Sporting Goods and testes a bunch of sneakers by bending them...if they didnt bend in half and have good flex thru the heel, arch and forefoot I didnt bother with them...I found 2 pairs that were real flexable...A pair of Socuanys and a pair of Nike Air Pegasus ...Up till that point I was wearing a pair of New Balances that had barely any bend in the arch and heel and I noticed about in my 3rd week of rehabing on my walks and sprints I was getting shin and ankle and foot pain o my right.......SO I put on the Socuanys the day I got them...went walking, jogging and sprinting and had absolutley no shin, ankle or foot pain....So I was convinced the flexable shoe is the way to go.....I will work up to the Nike Frees very soon...Word of Caustion if you go this way is to start foo slow by wearing them only a few hours a day and work your way up to full time...you will get new aches and pains since now your foot is fully flexing and you are using muscles you never used before If you have been wearing a stiff shoe

As for my Rehab Ill be at 4 weeks in another 2 days...Im doing about an hour in the pool now along with a mile walk...1/4 mile jog and am now able to do full out sprints with minimal pain...added in crunches, stairmaster and some baseball activities.....light toss, dry bat swings which I hope to add my chute onto the bat soon to add resistence...I plan to slowly ease out of the pool stuff and work into the gym next week

As far as pain it still bounces around from side to side between the groin, hips glutes, thighs and abs...Its usually only one area at a time that I feel any discomfort and very rarely any sharp pain...Incision puffyness is down and now just have the hardness feeling ...still some swelling in the pubic bone area with a little numbness and left test is still sore...all bruising is completely gone

Gld to here Den, HP and Tiff are doing well and look foward to updates from them and all the others

JC, nice to hear you\'re progressing well. I have been wearing Nike Pegasus for probably 25 years now (I am old!) and they are the best.

Albert -- fantastic, man! Very happy for you.

As for me, I went to see Meyers for another follow-up this morning and...

HE CLEARED ME TO DO ANYTHING I WANT PHYSICALLY!!!

I told him I\'d not tried skating yet as part of the rehab -- partially because I was a bit nervous of a relapse (since when I felt better before surgery going back to skating always reproduced my pain) and partially because of lack of time/available surface. He told me he wants me to go back to playing hockey as soon as I feel like I\'m in good enough shape cardio-wise (albeit while taking it easy with contact).

I think I\'m going to head to my old Thursday night pickup game, arrive a bit early and just try skating to see how it feels, then if that goes well try a game in another week or two. Meantime I am going to continue all the other working out (am officially down 10 lbs from pre-surgery and feeling great).

Continued good luck to all!

HP

Albert -- quick question: did you get the regular core-x system or the core-x rehab system? seems to be the same hardware but with different dvds.

thanks.

HP-

I did not know they had a rehab one. I have the regular one.

HP-

Did you see Meyers in person or was it the phone conversation? I have a phone appt. next week.

If i was not so out of shape I would feel great!!

One thing I will reiterate to those who think they have it:

Go to a doctor. The imbalances that my body contorted its way into are more difficult to unwind than the surgery.

My Pubalgia is like 97% healed. Have not had an inkling of anything the past 3 days.....and i am going hardcore now.

however:

1) My opposite side back is still weak from the muscles being overworked and stretched for 4 years...This is resolving but it takes alot of stretching

2) I know my plantar fasciatis is caused by this because my foot was everted (toes pointed to 2 o'clock) and post surgery my foot is straight ahead so my foot is not used to walking normal. (this still hurts like a son of a bitch).

3) my torn MCL is just dumb luck but the AIS specialist said it is no accident that all my injuries happen anteriorly.

**So word to the wise....get checked please.

I never thought I would say my AP does not hurt...but other stuff does....But i will take that trade in a New York minute.

Also I want to take this time to congratulate Hockey Player. I think he approached this injury perfectly. He tried PT and tried rest. When he realized that surgery was the answer he researched diligently. He rehabbed according to plan and pushed through when appropriate.

Good luck with hockey.

Here is how i went back to lifting because I was an avid lifter.

1) day 1 ......scared.....real scared

next day.....sore and inflammed...why did i do this?

2) day 2....much the same

next day.....sore and inflamed....but disappeared quickly

3) day 3...a little heavier and more excercises

next day......sore and inflammed.....2 day recovery

4) day 4.....same workout.....

next day.....no pain...just stiff

5) day 5......more weight....adding lat pulldowns (very afraid of this excercise)

next day....no pain or tightness

6) day 6....no more fear

7) day 7....looking forward to it...

**i know that is long-winded but that is how it went. When people say the rehab is emotional this is what it is about. Knowing that you feel okay and if you push you will hurt and be inflammed for a few days.....and then you get better and climb the recovery ladder.

It sometimes is hard to push knowing this....but i applaud all who have or are in the process as we write.

Albert said:

"One thing I will reiterate to those who think they have it:

Go to a doctor. The imbalances that my body contorted its way into are more difficult to unwind than the surgery.

My Pubalgia is like 97% healed. Have not had an inkling of anything the past 3 days.....and i am going hardcore now."

Albert, I agree. Whether or not someone is contemplating surgery or not, they need to educate themselves about the injury and rehab. Because I waited so long to deal with this, I have so many deficiencies now. I am getting stronger heading into week 11. I've been lifting weights which I haven't been able to do in almost two years. I've been able to do some limited jogging and jump rope. But I feel like if I dealt with this properly two years ago right when it happened -- surgery or no surgery -- it would have been much easier. You just can't underestimate the toll that compensatory problems will take. All of my muscles on my injury side are locked up, ...psoas, glutes, hamstrings. And my adductors are strained. My foot on the non-injured side is bothersome when I walk.

The good news is that I don't have pain... I am just dealing with what I hope are just tightness, aches and adjusting.

So, surgery or not, find rehab exercises that are proven to work. I still believe people can get better without surgery, but I think there is a very short window. That means recognize it soon -- and get a plan.

Den-

BY FAR the most progress i have made in terms of unlocking dysfunctions has been Active Isolated Stretching.

I have been doing it a week and my dysfunctions do not rear their ugly head until i work out like crazy and end of day. However I can get myself out of pain in 15 minutes....He said it will take 6 weeks of this twice a day to relearn and along with strengthening. he also discouraged what i did yesterday...Any type of repetitive motion....Because all we are doing is promoting more dysfunction.

Told me to weightlift and stretch....No walking...running....biking...etc...

Add things in around week 3

check out

http://www.whartonperformance.com/index.html

www.stretchingusa.com

Jim was expensive $320 but he gave me 2 hours and educated the hell out of me. However, his books can be bought on his site or at barnes and noble. If you want I can burn you a copy of the DVD and mail it to you. e-mail me at

pmazzdog@aol.com

On the 2nd site there are lists of AIS specialists in each state.

To me the FMS is great but nothing had addressed my tightness and i think we all can agree that short/tight/weak muscles are at the bottom of many dysfunctions.

I was brought up on the hold 30-60 second stretch and that is clinically proven to make the muscles guard.

Anyways...check it out. I think it will set you straight.

I drove 4 hours to see him and had excrutiating opp side back pain...glute tightness...calf tightness.....He got rid of it in under 10 minutes....with 3 stretches and a rope...

Also you can get a rope to stretch with at a boat store or EMS type place

Thanks Albert... I'm looking into it further. Based off what I've read, maybe I'm holding the stretches too long which may be aggravating my hamstring instead of releasing. Very interesting...

The one thing that I'm trying more of right now is doing pelvic tilts while really activating the glutes. I've progressed this into what is basically a flex of the abs, hamstrings and quads at the same time. This seems to be activating all of these muscles with very low impact. I'll report back on this, but it seems to be helping strengthen things gently. A massage therapist recommended this for my glutes because I drive a lot for my job -- which I think is slowing my progress.

when doing glute bridges put a theraband around your thighs and keep tension on them....While doing this keep your heels as close to your butt as possible and when going up stay on your heels. After getting to the top strike each glute with a fist and go down. My FMS guy showed me this. It really works the external hip rotators because you have tension from the band.

Albert, I saw him in person -- I'm less than an hour by train from Philly, so it's not too bad for me to go see him. He said he wants me to call in 2-3 weeks, after I go back to playing hockey, and Marcia actually set up a time for that in early September.

I texted Meyers to ask the same question about core-x and he said use the regular one. they do make one specifically designed for rehab. i think it's the same hardware with different dvds that address rehab. it is a lot more expensive, too. i ordered the regular one last night.

thanks for the kind words and the color surrounding your return to lifting. despite meyers' encouragement i am still pretty nervous about going back to playing hockey (though I did do a light skate yesterday evening with no problems). i'm expecting to be sore at first but hoping that the pain will subside as i continue to work through it. knowing that that's how it went for you with lifting is very helpful.

Hi everyone:

New to the board, and did a lot of reading yesterday to follow the threads. I am currently trying to figure out the next step with my situation and would welcome people's thoughts.

I'm a 37 year old male, atheltic just about all my life and in great shape. About 6 months ago, I think I overdid it with a long run and hills, and a few days later had a strange adbominal pain in my lower right side. After the waiting game, anti-inflammatory meds from my PMD failed, had a CT done which showed nothing significant. Orthopedic hip surgeon also took an x-ray, did the usual tests, and saw nothing.

I went to see Dr. Meyers in early May, and after having his special MRI protocol (heck of a wait for it too), he read the images and said he saw labral tears on both hips, no tear of the RA, but still thought I had some RA tears which were the problem. He suggested, and I concurred, to engage in PT to strengthen my core.

I was trying to do PT on my own for most of May, but wasn't seeing improvement, so started seeing a PT in June. My right hip flexor was very weak, so was my core, and I started focusing on exercises to strengthen them.

I'm now 2.5 months into PT, very diligent with exercise, have been running 1-2x week, for 2-3 miles a clip, easy pace, plus swimming 1-2x/week for about 30-40 minutes. And of course, my core exercises 3-4x/week on top of almost daily stretching.

My pain is really more "discomfort" because I can still do everything I did before, just with some noticable aches/pains which are more dull than they are sharp. They don't worsen with activity. The discomfort feels like it is deep, goes anywhere from hip to lower abdomen to the groin and sometimes even "the boys". And I started feeling discomfort (less so) in the left side too.

Seeing a few general surgeons, I have received mixed opinions ranging from "you definitely have a hernia!" to "There's no way I would recommend you having surgery, since you don't have a hernia". My PMD who I saw yesterday checkd and felt a hernia on both sides, but noted his physical findings are sometimes clinically insignificant.

I definitely feel like my core has strengthened since Feb with time and PT, but has levelled off a bit. A follow up call with Myers in July had us both agree to continue PT and see him in October for follow up.

Sorry for the rambling here, but as perhaps some of you have experienced or still do, I want to resolve this situation but don't want to jump on the OR table if it won't help (or perhaps worsen things). I definitely do not feel pain in my RA (easy to do crunches, planks, bird dogs, dead bug), seems to be more towards the muscles deep and medial to my hips.

Would appreciate anyone's feedback/thoughts if this mirrors your symptoms and also if anyone can answer these questions:

1) I have Aetna, which does not cover Myers surgery. Anyone been successful in getting this approved "pre" surgery?

2) Living in northern NJ, does anyone know of any experts in New York City who can evaluate/treat? Would be surprised that NYC does not have at least one AP surgeon/specialist.

Thanks, in advance, for your input/information.

Ebox

Ebox, I think you are doing the right thing. if your pain doesn't prevent you from engaging in all your activities, why go under the knife? You may be one of the lucky ones who identified this and started PT early enough to heal without surgery.

If your hips are symptomatic, you might want to see Dr. Kelly in NYC -- I think Meyers refers a lot of patients to him.

I don't think there's anyone in NYC who specializes in AP. I also live in NJ and my sports medicine doctor referred me to a surgeon at UMDNJ named Andrew Boyarsky. He says he learned some diagnosis and repair techniques from Dr. Muschaweck in Germany, who is up there on Meyers' level and fixes a lot of pro soccer players (though her approach differs significantly). Boyarsky said he wouldn't operate on me but Meyers' MRI showed RA tears and I ended up having the surgery a little over a month ago. I feel great now, but I waited about 6 months and kept playing hockey with the pain before I saw a doc and started PT, which didn't work.

I know that Marcia in Dr. Meyers' office has said several patients have successfully appealed insurance denials, but I'm not sure if any have done it with Aetna before the procedure. You should ask her.

Hope that is helpful, and good luck to you!

Ebox-

I think it would be worth your while to visit Jim Wharton at Wharton Performance Center. He works with the US Olympic team and many other professionals. He will break you down muscle by muscle and many times can unlock the hip areas musculature thus freeing the joint to move pain free. I talked to them and many other trainers and alot seem to think the labral tears are pretty common on athletes.

http://www.whartonperformance.com/index.html

Ebox,

Knowing what I know now... If it were me, I would stop running and find something low impact until you get it fully addressed. I know that is probably hard to do. But that would be my advice unless you can find some very soft turf to lightly jog. My test results were all similar to your's. Running only aggravated my condition prior to surgery, but everyone is different.