A New Injury Diagnosis

Let’s have a little story time today, shall we?

Short version: It took me 3 weeks to track down the results of my MRI.

Long version (using a series of gifs because I feel like that’s the best way to express my emotions):

In November, I made an appointment to get my knee checked out. My insurance makes me see one guy for everything, so I had to book an appointment with him. He wasn’t available until the end of January.

Ugh.

I made the appointment and waited as patiently as possible. The day finally arrived and I had about 10 minutes with him. He asked me to schedule an MRI. I assumed this would happen.

I had to wait a week and a half for that MRI, after which they said I’d get a phone call within a couple days.

In an effort to be patient and not annoying, I waited two full weeks.

After two weeks with no update, I sent a message to the doctor’s office through the “secure online portal” they encourage everyone to use first. No response.

I called and was promised a response that day.

Nothing.

I called again a couple days later and was promised an “urgent” response.

Nothing.

At this point it was three weeks after the MRI, almost 3 months after I made the appointment. I’ve been having the same pains this whole time.

I finally said I wanted to make an appointment with the first available doctor because no one was calling me back…so they made the appointment for a few days later. I hoped someone would call me back in the meantime so I didn’t have to trek over there and pay the co-pay I knew they’d make me pay regardless.

Nope.

Finally, over 3 weeks after my MRI, I went in to hear someone tell me I had a basically normal MRI, with one minor issue. (I’ll get into this in a second.)

SERIOUSLY NO ONE COULD CALL ME AND TELL ME THAT? Every time I go to see a doctor I end up frustrated.

 

How come (it seems like) it’s so hard to find someone in the medical profession that cares?

How come no one seems to want to figure out the actual problem and fix what’s causing pain, (as opposed to just alleviating pain in the short term)?

Wouldn’t we all be better off if we focused on long-term health and healing?

So, this new doctor (who was very nice) said, non-chalantly, “you have some arthritis in your knee, but at your age I’m not worried. If you were 18 I might be, but you’re not.” LOL.

I googled gifs about being old and this came up and I can’t stop watching it and giggling.

I didn’t think much about it at first. I didn’t even mention it to anyone. But after some google research (the most reliable, of course) I learned that more movement helps, along with strengthening the knee joint. Which makes total sense because when I decided to completely rest, I swore it got worse. It made no sense to me. And when I sit still for awhile or sometimes during sleep it bothers me more.

Still, I’m just guessing but I’m pretty sure the main problem here is originating in my hips. I notice the biggest difference when I do hip stretches before running.  For now, she referred me to a few sessions of PT, so that’s my next step. (They can’t see me until the beginning of April. GREAT.)

In the meantime, I’m feeling dejected and sad. The logical part of my brain is reminding me I need to cancel my NYC Half entry. AGAIN.

(P.S. If I’m reading the NYRR rules correctly, they allow you to defer to next year…is that right? Help!)

I felt so strong when this all happened. I was definitely the strongest I’d been in a long time. Maybe ever. So what’s my issue? Poor recovery? Too quick of an increase with mileage? Not enough foam rolling? Reading back on my blog, I’m realizing I’ve been getting injured at least once a year. That’s so ridiculous because I know that’s not a normal thing, and I’m definitely not doing enough running to warrant this.

The healthiest my body felt was actually when I was going to PT consistently in 2013 during Ironman/NYC Marathon training and they were doing manual therapy (I think that’s the phrase)…whatever that tool is that they’d rub down my leg in the most painful way possible. It was so brutal but afterwards my legs felt light and airy and consistently pain-free and I wanted to run forever.

It had my best marathon that year, and I was coming right off 9 months of intense triathlon training. I did barely any speedwork, but still took 40 minutes off my previous PR. I ran two marathons in two weeks.

2013 was such a good year.

I want to get back to 2013 Kara. I know I have more potential, I just need to stay healthy and figure out the culprit.

Or switch to this.

Have you had recurring injuries? What was the issue?