Athletes with Chronic Pain?

Ferbabe

In 2001, almost 11 years ago, I was crushed by a 6 foot 4, 468 lb ex-football player.

It wasn't his fault. He was 3rd day post-op open heart, and it was time to get him sitting up, out of bed. The stretcher chair we were using to sit him up failed. The locking mechanism didn't take and the back of the chair fell backwards onto me, bending me backwards to an unnatural angle. And so began the stabbing pains in my hips and low back, painful enough to stop me from moving, turning in bed, driving...you name it.

Then the injury was mis-handled. I was told I had a muscle strain, given muscle relaxants to take, put on bed rest with a 10 lb weight restriction. Every 4 weeks when I went to follow up I was told "Oh, not feeling better? Continue restrictions."

That was in early June, in late September I had my annual physical with my physician who raised the red flag. 'A muscle strain doesn't take 4 1/2 months to heal" she told me, "Something is wrong". And so began the battery of tests that showed an itty bitty compression of my L4-L5 disk...really no big deal. But the months of continued bed rest, absolute inactivity, and three times daily muscle relaxants had done their damage. I was up to 220 lbs, and my spinal muscles were so decompensated that I was officially diagnosed with a pelvic instability. That instability would resulted in multiple subluxations all along my spine. Subluxation=pain, pelvic rotations making one leg longer than the other, rib dislocations, muscle spasms, etc., etc., etc.

What can I say, when I do it, I go ALL the way!

I got tired of being inactive and drugged up. I lost a ton of weight in 2005 through food management, but was still in constant pain. so, I joined the gym in 2006 and have completely redesigned my life and my body. But here is where the whiner hat comes into play...I still have chronic pain.

I am so frustrated that I am tossing a 20lb kettlebell, weight lifting, doing HIIT, and running regularly, and I still have pain, spasms, all the same old stuff. I am getting better-slowly- I actually just had almost 2 months of 85% pain free life. But now I am having a "flare up". Who knows why, they come on when they want to and stop me in my tracks. I have gone from constant every day pain to 3x yearly flare ups that last a month or two, so I am making progress. I guess I just need to feel sorry for myself today. I just popped another ibuprofen...I have an ice pack tapped to my sternum and my right upper back by my spine. What a way to spend your lunch break. Sigh

When I look up chronic pain on the internet, the pain management sites talk about staying positive, leading an active life- they recommend taking daily walks...HAH.

If I look up Chronic Pain Athlete on Google I get a bunch of scholarly articles about how athletes can have chronic ankle pain after injuries, about knowing the difference between muscle soreness and an injury. I admit, I am irritated.

I know I am not the only person that works out 5+ hours a week and still has chronic hip, back, and chest pain. Where are you all?

Tell me your story please, I need to comiserate.