Love the avatar, deb!!! 
Basement for me. Itās now the warmest, quietest place in the house. Yikes. Even the kitty hung out for my entire workout, curled up in front of the space heater! Next to the DBs laid out for my front squats.
It snowed all afternoon and now is headed down to the low 20s overnight. Not really what I was looking for with walls open to the breezes through the attic and so forth. Brrr. Iām just blasting the heat.
I want one of these &%^ fans for my summer workouts. Just the ticket for blowing on my face while riding the dreaded Airdyne. These things produce gale force winds! MKAT could set one up in his basement to train for headwinds! I canāt believe Iāve got nine, wait no, TEN of these things going full tilt.
http://www.prochem.com/ViewCategories.aspx?Pid=1313
They only have one speed: 11.
Well, idad, it says 8 of them can be easily daisy chained on a single 12 amp circuit. 
This explains why MOfWC is so smart!!! 
https://www.yahoo.com/health/one-thing-you-can-do-now-to-keep-your-brain-from-112715162252.html
LOL Bunsen. I hope so!
Deb-love the avatar and I bet the Bloody Mary was great!
IDad. Make sure the cats donāt blow away! I canāt believe you are getting more snow.
Mmmmmā¦ Bloody Mary sounds awesome right about now. I will order one with dinner.
Itās every man for himself around here right nowā¦
Deb, I think you should give idad and his kitties your Bloody Maryā¦
The avatar is cute. Symbolically it suggests that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (ribbon) is a Bloody Mary
Actually, what I think idad and the kitties need to get through this might be a bottle of 18 year scotch!
Technically, no snowshoeing this weekend (hill is collapsing, more or less) but I worked pretty much all day Sat at Sweatlodge, loading firewood, carrying stones, and shoveling out the lodge. Did trick up my back, but did a bunch of hottubing, naprosyne and stretches and am fine again. It does speak to my core being subpar these days.
Is today the end of the fans? I sure hope so.
7.7 miles this morning, good start to the week.
Hello, everyone. I havenāt been around this thread much since nothing is new and I have nothing to report.
However, I need some advice. (Yeah, yeah, Iām seeking medical advice from a bunch of strangers on the Internet. Get over it!)
Iāve been having pain in my left hip for over a year. Itās especially bad at night when I lie on my back to go to sleep. Iāve had to sleep on my side, or with a pillow under my knees. When I complained about it to my PCP, he thought it was bursitis and prescribed ice packs. Tried that for a month; did nothing; gave it up.
When I saw my rheumatologist, she thought it might be sciatica. Nope ā the pain doesnāt radiate at all. Iāve had sciatica, and this isnāt it.
I gave up the treadmill for around six weeks and switched to the elliptical, thinking that might make a difference. Nope. I also adjusted my exercise routine to avoid using the hip. No difference.
So I saw an orthopedist. He took an xray that showed nothing bone-wise, but he thought I might have bursitis or tendinitis. He suggested either a cortisone injection or physical therapy. Of course I chose the PT. The therapist was great ā she determined itās an issue with the gluteus medius on that side, and she gave me exercises to stretch that muscle as well as strengthen the glute max and some other muscles on that side. She also did deep tissue massage at every visit. (Very interesting chatting with someone while they rub your butt!)
Well, that improved the pain slightly, but now Iām back to square zero. Iām going to continue to do the exercises until mid- to late April, and at that time I plan to return to the orthopedist.
Has anyone ever had something like this? Has anyone ever had the cortisone injection? Advice and experiences, please!
TIA.
I donāt have any advice or experience VeryHappy, but I applaud your patience and willing to listen and try the various specialists advice!
4.67 miles run/walk. Didnāt feel as if I would keel over the entire time, so I guess Iām getting my mojo back after being out of commission for a couple of weeks with the crud. Iāve decided that listening to podcasts is the way to go ā helps keep my mind off of what Iām doing! Got home, took off my shoes and discovered a ābloody sockā on my left foot. That hasnāt happened in a really long time ā and the odd thing is I never felt any toe discomfort the entire time I was running.
VeryHappy - bummer about the hip pain. I was also having hip pain for about a month before I had to stop exercising due to the above mentioned crud. Iām so afraid it will return, but so far, so good. (Yours sounds worse, though.) I wasnāt entirely sure, but it did seem as if it was a muscle thing, as opposed to a hip joint problem. Re: cortisone shots ā several years ago I had an issue with my left shoulder; not quite a frozen shoulder, but similar. The cortisone shot did absolutely nothing for me ā even the doc was surprised. Next I did PT which involved a lot of stretching exercises; this seemed to help some. What did the most for me, though, was using the lat pull-down machine at the gym to help stretch out those muscles. However, I do know other folks who have good results with a cortisone shot. Hope you find relief soon.
VeryHappy- I have had things that sound a lot like your hip pain over the years. Sometimes it is because my SI joint rotates out of position. It requires manual PT (pop it back in position- doesnāt hurt- sort of like cracking your knuckle but it takes a skilled PT) and then re-training the muscles with hip and glute strengthening exercises. I struggled with this for several years. I have had the injections with usually poor results. I did have a series of xray guided epidural injections in 2011 because I had some disk impingement, and that seemed to do the trick. It was a last resort, though.
Unfortunately, these injuries can be extremely difficult to diagnose and treat. Tendinitis and bursitis in that area is very slow to respond to treatment and anti-inflammatory drugs. Wish I could be more encouraging.
Very Happy:
My suspicion is that the vast majority of non-specific general āhip painā problems are fundamentally caused by lower back disk/nerve root issues. I would be particularly suspicious if you canāt quite put your finger on where it hurts. Iām suspicious because virtually all of us will show lower back disk bulges on MRIs. Our backs suffer a lot of wear and tear. Itās not a question of having back injuries (we all do), itās a question of whether we have symptoms (pain) or not.
This is compounded by the sitting lifestyle (desks, cars, etc.) and single plane exercise (bike, running, eliptical, etc.) allowing the muscles of the hips and core that protect our backs to atrophy. Ultimately, exercises that strengthen the hips and core will be the best long term approach ā not because they fix the hip pain per se, but because they protect the back and limit the pain from disc issues. If your hips and glutes donāt bend and arenāt strong, then you compensate by bending your back. Not good. You want to move at the hips and have the lower back stay motion free.
This all assumes that tests for a specific injury (like a fractured pelvis) have come up negative, of course!
I would look at the hip and core exercises from PT as a starting point on a permanent lifestyle change incorporating them as the most important element of exercise and fitness. I have found them to be cumulative over a long period of time (several years). In fact, itās taken several years to really āgetā a lot of the exercises, especially the hip exercises. The major focus of sports training these days is getting the hips to function properly. The PT exercises are like the introductory classā¦
This is my favorite hip flexibility exercise. Being on the elbows locks the lower back out and forces you to use the hips, although at first, youāll cheat and use the hamstrings with an almost immediate cramp:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MuyIawJdno
And, this one is awesome too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTK-V1BPlJY
I try to do both these as part of a warm up at least three days a week.
Maybe today, probably tomorrow.
Iām trying to sweet talk them into putting up some plastic over the exposed walls in my office where cold air is blowing in from the rafters. Cold bedroom is OK because Iām under a down comforter. Cold kitchen is OK because Iām standing up and moving around. Sitting at the computer shivering is not OK.
Thanks, guys. I knew I could count on this group. I am very frustrated right now because I expected that once I went to the orthopedist, heād figure out the problem and Iād be on my way. The physical therapist was a lovely young woman who took my pain very seriously, and for a while things seemed to be getting better, but now Iām right back to where I was. Itās very discouraging.
idad, the therapist gave me those exercises plus some others to do, and I am doing them religiously every day. (I am perhaps the most compliant patient in the world.) Iāll keep going with them for another month or so, and then ā I donāt know what Iāll do!!
VeryHappy, it takes a lot of patience to fix things with PT! IMO, a month is way too short. My knee issue took a good 4 months to resolve. Were you the one who mentioned lifting dumbbells over your head for osteoporosis prevention? Some of these lifts can do bad things to the spine and the disks if not done properly. Good luck to you.
4.25 miles. Off to do other fun things!
62 degrees and cloudy. Iāll take it. 3.5 mile mostly run with a little walking talking to a neighbor.
Very Happy:
Alas, these kinds of pains donāt always lend themselves to the test (x-ray/MRI), treat (presciption), cure paradigm that the docs like. That makes it extremely frustrating, both for the person in pain and the medical people. For many of us, the problems are more systemic than any one thing you can point to.
I think back guru Stuart McGill has a great approach. Figure out your exercise tolearance pain-free (what can you do without hurting?) and then invest all of that exercise tolerance in core strengthening (and hip mobility in your case).
Looking back, I thought I was making big gains at 3 months (and I was), but seeing the results on this core and hip stuff four or five years later is pretty eye-opening.