I have just now discovered how to remove the majority of the chronic condition of the right side of my body. This I learned of around a month ago, and the method was as simple as that of knowing how to use a hard foam roller. What is a hard foam roller? I suggest that you search through the forums to get a number of differing reactions.
My initial problem commenced around 9 years ago, when I started having a small tight area in my kneecap. I was active in squash at that stage.
I was also asking the GP what this was to be given the answer that it is nothing really as everyone gets them. I understand his answer now. Chronic muscles from our life styles, which may be passive or active but involves knots accumulated in our muscles.
A short time later, my right leg became weak and it got to the stage that I had to use crutches because of the pain and weakness in it. However, I found how to avoid pain killers by sitting with my body in a specific position.
I can now see that the feeling in my knee, which the GP almost treated with ignore indicated the strong body distortion on the right side of my body and this was from playing sports during my life and the one side only being used to do this, which is the case with most sports people.
I researched as fast as I could on a daily basis, and after each anticipated hopeful solution…I would make the appointment and expect something positive to occur.
It took me around 2 years to more assuredly discover that the problem was probably going to be chronically tight muscles and not a hip replacement as two surgeons had told me. I then learned that tight muscles were weak muscles and that muscles should be similar to a stretchy rubber band to be strong.
My knowledge grew with each probing question in Google and there were suggestions of how to relax the stubborn and distressing muscle knots.
I purchased a number of items for what I thought would help resolve the problem. My findings included back treatment with a contraption that lifted my legs which were hung over it with me on the ground. I also tried hammer type massagers…..an ultrasound unit….a yoga sling….. exercise balls and other items, but when I discovered the foam roller around 3 years ago I thought that was the real solution. I looked at the videos online but it was not until I found a practitioner who worked specifically in this area and read about his knowledge and experience did I really think that this was the time I would probably lose my limp.
It was also the reassurance of the promised interaction from the therapist which I did receive in the form of prompt emails which convinced me to purchase the therapy information.
And…. the inspiration that I received gave me the confidence to persevere with the very difficult and painful rolling treatment on a daily basis… and that allowed me to reach my goal of ridding almost all of the knots in my ITB… rectus femoris…calves….peroneals…adductors….
My muscle knots felt a lot like rolling “concrete” for days on end. I needed the therapist’s knowledge of practical expectancy from other patients he had helped to convince myself to continue. It took me 17 days …10 times a day to relax the ITB…and 9 days to relax the rectus femoris with a similar rolling consistency. I am still in the process of rolling my adductor….in the ninth day.
The number of muscle knots [or sarcomeres to be more in line medically] were in their thousands and to make clearer were in the majority in the three areas I mentioned…………..[1] the ITB…illiotibial band…the muscle running down the side of our leg from our hip to our knee.
[2] The second area of really chronic tightness, as I said previously, was in the main muscle of my right quadriceps…down the centre of the thigh..and this extraordinary tight muscle is called the rectus femoris.
[3] The third muscle which I am currently working on in the ninth day is the adductor…on the inside of the thigh which also affects the groin area.
The pain problems that the ITB muscle can cause are also confusing….. they can be in the hip…the knee..the back…the foot..the shin..and a strong and obvious indicator is caused by it, but is easily recognized when we walk with our feet pointing outwards.
I have spent many dollars visiting many medical practitioners, who did not tell me of these two to three common areas of body problems or were obviously not aware of them.
I have now also learned of perhaps an easier method to maintain muscles by using a tool known as “the stick” and will receive this product in a few days time. I will report about this as I work with it.
The stick at my first evaluation appears to be a more of a lighter massage tool than the hard foam roller.
I am now working on the 7th area in my leg using the roller…between the ITB and rectus femoris…this is a type of detective work in trying to locate these annoying muscle knots. And….I hope that this could be the final spot to allow me to have better use of my leg.
No…I now have two more areas to free up…the one between the ITB and the RF, plus the upper adductor.
With a new set of thought patterns…… after removing the major problem of muscle knots in my body; and making many statements in the Google research box, I have discovered what I believe is the remaining problem area…which is that of the psoas muscle.
To reinforce this, I note that the psoas is the only muscle attached to the lumbar, and after only 2 or 3 attempts at a stretching exercise for it my body was giving good signs of becoming balanced.
After stretching of the psoas for a few days and still having tension in my femur I think this could be a lengthier healing time than I first anticipated.