Diagnosis, again

I just got back from physical therapy

Their opinion is - IT band. Common runner injury from what I understand. The way she explained it to me made sense... see, back in January-March I noticed some pain and tightness in my right hip. I just tried to stretch and loosen it up before and after running. Then the lower back pain started in March. And now that I'm back to pretty much zero activity aside from last weekend's race, I have noticed that the pain has reverted back to my hip and not so much my lower back. The PT thinks that while I ran through the hip pain, I may have been altering my running form without realizing it in order to compensate for the muscle injury. She also had a really good answer for my mysterious stomach cramp that started happening in connection with all this. There's a huge abdominal muscle that connects the hips to the spine, and if I'm having pain in my IT band, the surrounding muscles will contract in an effort to try to stabilize everything. She thinks it's possible I could be having some SI joint issues as well. But after several tests, pokes, and prods, my IT band is apparently pretty tight - but nothing severe.

I am going to be self treating for 3 weeks before going back for a follow up. Stretches once a day, some of which will include a resistance band. I also need to roll out the muscle - will probably buy a foam roller, but I could always find a random object if need be. She also gave me this stuff called Kinesiotape which sometimes helps with the pain. I have one on my leg and one on my back and will wear them for 2-3 days until they start to fall off. Today my hip pain was pretty bad, but it's slightly better now after doing a few sample stretches at the appointment.

And the good news is, I can still do stuff! I have a plan for running that I'm to follow. It will seem like chump work to me I'm sure... the first one is like "walk 5 minutes, run 1 minute, repeat x" but the idea is to work my way up and see if the pain persists or not. As long as I don't have a sharp pain, I'm pretty much good to go with any type of activity. And that's the tricky part... figuring out what exercise is good and bad for treating injured muscles, because let's face it, it all pretty much hurts and/or feels tense. But now I'm armed with some good information. Hopefully this is all it is, and it's not some deeper issue. I have a feeling that since my symptoms have changed according to my activity levels, it's gotta be something cureable. Here's hoping...

I'll probably go out for my "run" on Saturday morning. It's raining like mad here (thanks Florida) so maybe tomorrow I'll just hit the weights instead.

Can't wait to see if this pain improves!