Well after my last blog, espousing nothing but positivity I have had a rather negative experience this week 😞.
Whilst heading of for an early morning swim at Clevedon Marine lake I had a slight mishap! It was a very cold morning with a lot of frost around, I decided, given the temperature, that a brilliant warm up plan would be to park as at the opposite end of the sea front and walk a good mile to the lake. Now, as it turns out there was one particularly slippery patch on the Tarmac. Near the far end of the lake and at the furthest point possible from the car......I can sense that you just know where this is going 😬!
My first first awareness of this slippery patch was my left leg sliding off in front of me 😖 and as I tried to brace through my back leg that slid back too 😧. Now, last week the photo accompanying the blog was of me as a young (national) gymnast, back then I could do a front splits with ease.....not any more it would seem...well, not with ease anyway! The worse thing about this whole incident was that it was not quick; I could feel what was happening but do nothing to stop it, I tried falling to the side to get off my legs but they kept widening until..............PING!, one big hamstring tear 😱! Then somehow, right after I actually needed it I finally managed to achieve the falling to one side but with the double indignity of putting my shoulder out at the same time! I say this was all negative but I suppose I did achieve a full front splits at 50 years old so that's a positive 😂! This impressive feat was evident by the large cut on the inside of my knee, on the back leg.; demonstrating, that the leg had indeed achieved full contact with the ground! The whole process was accompanied by some choice use of the english language but as it was so early in the morning no one was about to hear or see it. This I also felt was a positive as it was less embarrassing than it could have been. Then of course came the realisation I somehow had to get back to the car🤔.
As we have posted on several occasions, the most important thing we can do with a traumatic soft tissue injury is apply cold, as soon as possible......well, the lake looked pretty cold at 3 degrees 😐.
I rolled in and this bought me enough anti inflammatory and pain relief to limp back to the car and head home .
So What have I been doing since then? Exactly what you should be doing if you pull something too: Three days of ice (ten mins in every hour, where realistic), and compression, elevation when you can and keeping moving within a pain free range (if possible). Then graduated return to normal loading/movement by gently building up normal walking speed and stride every day, as well as graduated shoulder exercises.
Of course I have the advantage that I can call on a particularly good therapist to do some soft tissue work on me to help keep the scar tissue away and ensure great healing occurs................... there are advantages to being married to another therapist 🤗.
For those of you who are not lucky enough to be married to a therapist, at least you know somewhere, where you can get the best treatment possible and with empathy 🤣.....right here at The Reinge Clinic 😀.