To sum up the last “more than a year,” I still struggle with SI issues and still see my physical therapist monthly. However, I have made good progress. I run 15 miles/week, and I’ve been able to start biking again. I just still have random setbacks and still sometimes have to run in the proprioceptive SI belt. And I’m tired of it. I’ve been dealing with this for about 3 years now. I’m not even 30. This shouldn’t be a nagging issue.

I’ve decided to try a gluten-free diet. My naturopath has nudged in this direction but knows better than to “prescribe” it for me. As I’ve been reading more about other people’s struggles with SI dysfunction, a common theme I’ve seen is that people who cut gluten out of their diet see dramatic improvements in their SI issues.

I’ve been tackling this issue from the biomechanical aspect for a long time now. I’ve seen improvements, but I’m not over this injury. I think it’s time to start looking at other aspects, like nutrition. It’s sorta the same line of thinking as, “If you want to lose weight, you need to exercise AND eat healthier.” Doing just one or the other won’t yield the results you’re looking for. I’ve tackled the “exercise” aspect of my SI issues but not the nutrition part. And now it’s time to do that.

It’s daunting and scary, but I hope it will be worth it. Wish me luck!

In a nutshell, my tailbone (technically my sacrum) has continued to give me problems. It simply doesn’t want to stay in place. I see the PT, she pops it back in, and somehow in the course of the ensuing week, it pops back out.

So, I’m taking a new approach. I’m still seeing my PT, albeit only once every few weeks. On the PT front, she has given me a new proprioceptive sacroiliac belt that has a sacral pad to put more pressure on the sacrum and do a better job of keeping it in place.

I’ve also started seeing a naturopathic doctor. It’s become clear to me in the past couple of months that there’s something deeper going on that’s preventing my body from realigning properly. I’m hoping that the naturopathic treatment plan will help me regain balance and proper alignment in my body. Currently, my doctor is performing craniosacral treatments and has prescribed Unda numbers and various other homeopathic remedies. My hope is that the naturopath is able to help me achieve lasting results so I can run long distances and ride a bike.

As for my activity level, I’m running 3 miles 3 times a week and swimming 3000 yards twice a week. Still no biking. On the plus side, I’m running between an 8:00 and 8:30 pace, depending on what kind of day I’m having.

It doesn’t hurt to run or swim. In fact it only hurts to sit. And even then, it hurts the worst only at my office. I switched out my office chair, and that has helped a lot, but it still hurts to sit there. It hurts less to sit at home or out at restaurants. Go figure.

I think the combination of the sacral pad and the craniosacral treatments is helping me. I think my sacrum is in place, and my pain has decreased.

So there’s the update. Hopefully I’ll have more time to blog regularly from now on.

Fortunately, I had a PT appointment that day. The verdict was that my pelvic bone was slightly forward (out of place), and my tail bone was messed up as well. I was so disheartened to hear that I had pelvic bone issues again since it’s been in place since at least November. My PT promised it wasn’t that bad, though. And she was able to put everything back in place. She told me to wear my SI belt for a few days to promote everything staying in place. She also told me no running until I can sit without pain.

Now, 5 days later, I’m still wearing the belt. Yesterday afternoon I took it off and was able to sit pain-free. Granted, I wasn’t sitting for long periods of time. Last night, about halfway through the night, I got up to let the dog out and decided to try sleeping (just on my back) without the belt. But as soon as I took the belt off, my butt and leg started hurting. So I put the belt back on. Still not better. Fortunately some ibuprofen did the trick, and I was able to fall asleep again.

Today at work the pain was moderate. I didn’t have to lay on the floor, thankfully, but I did feel pain down my IT band and in my sacrotuberous ligament. I’ve also felt a bit of lower back pain, which my PT says is due to my lower vertebrae twisting, which is, in turn, due to my tail bone twisting. Awesome. Fortunately, I don’t feel the sharp pain in my SI joint nearly as often or as intensely, but it’s also not totally gone.

To the best of my knowledge, my pelvic bone is still in the right place. It’s definitely not rotated up or down, and it’s not obviously pushed forward. But it could be a little forward, depending on how nit-picky you are when looking at it.

So yes, very frustrating. I can’t run, and I can’t bike. I don’t really want to swim 5 days a week, but I may have no choice. I’m still taking it day-by-day and will continue to do so all of this week. My next PT appointment is on Friday.

I guess, as a silver lining, I don’t think this was caused by my increase in running distance. I guess it could be, but it seems unlikely. And I had upped my distance to 3.6 miles without pain in my calf. So that’s good. Hopefully this week off will help everything settle in the right place, and I’ll be able to jump right back in to running at my current mileage next week.

The thing that is plaguing me is wondering what caused this setback. There are several possible causes: 1) I’ve started teaching myself how to do flip turns in the pool, 2) I skied telemark two weekends ago (but wore the belt), and 3) I started biking again. It seems that the most likely culprit is the biking. That’s what initially caused the SI issue in the first place. Telemark could’ve done it, but I was on groomers the whole time, wearing the belt, and made sure to keep my stance tight and not too spread out. I guess flip turns could do it, but since you start your flip using forward momentum from swimming (as opposed to pushing off the bottom of the pool like when doing a somersault), you only push off the side of the pool into a straight line, which I do with non-flip turns as well. I guess it’s possible that the act of curling into a ball puts too much pressure on the SI joint. Maybe I’ll give up on flip turns for awhile and see if there’s any improvement.

My PT also suggested that my sleeping positions could be the problem. It turns out that my favorite sleeping position is not good for my SI joint. So I’ve been avoiding that position and taking other precautions that the PT suggested to keep everything in place. And I’m wearing the belt. But I’m just not sure that this is the issue. I’ve been sleeping in the “forbidden” position for at least the past 2 1/2 months, and I haven’t had any issues. It doesn’t seem like it would be do detrimental all of a sudden.

So yes, very frustrating, but I’m trying to stay positive. Part of what’s annoying is that my initial injury (my calf) seems to be totally fine now. If only my SI would follow suit….

For awhile now, I’ve been hoping and planning to run a half-marathon on July 11th. However, I’ve decided to give up on that dream. Training for that race would commence next week, and I just don’t think I’m ready to start training. I’m still building a base. This week I’m running 3.3 miles, and I’d like to keep increasing my distance 10% a week until I hit 5 miles, which was my base run pre-injury. I’ll hold that distance for maybe a month or so before I start incorporating speed work, tempo runs, and longer distances. If I continue to be able to increase my mileage with no set-backs, I should be able to start “training” in early May.

Obviously it’s disappointing to not be able to run this race that I’ve been looking forward to. (It’s also the same race that I was planning to run at marathon distance last year before my injury got the best of me.) But if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past year (last weekend was the one-year anniversary of my injury), it’s that one race is not worth risking injury or re-injury. So I’ll hold off on this race for yet another year. Maybe I can find a nice half-marathon to run next fall.

To help me get over my sadness at not being able to do this race, I’ve decided to sign up for a beginners’ triathlon in May. It’s super short: 500-yd swim, 5 mile bike, 5k run. Obviously, if I was at full strength, I would train for this by focusing exclusively on speed work. But I’m mostly just doing this race to be able to do a race. It’s not competitive (it’s geared toward families), and so I don’t really plan on pushing myself. Instead, I’ll just go through the motions at a moderate pace.

So, starting this week, I’m running 25 minutes consecutively at a 9:00 pace. My calf sometimes feels tight, but I’ve made the foam roller my best friend, and that keeps the tightness at bay. Also, the tightness isn’t specific to the area where I have scar tissue. It’s more diffuse, which is a good thing. My SI joint is doing well, too. My pelvic bone is perfect, and my tailbone gets better every week. Last week it was basically in the right place.

However, starting on Monday I have felt pain in my glute on the left side. The good news is that it’s not anywhere near my tailbone. It’s more on the outside, near where my femur inserts into my hip socket. I’ve been massaging it with a tennis ball, and that seems to help. I think it’s just a muscle thing, and I don’t think anything is torn, so hopefully my PT can massage it back into shape this Friday.

I’m hoping to run a half-marathon in July. My training would start the second week in March. Thus, I’m very excited that I can run consecutively with no pain. I’ll continue to increase my running time 10%/week until the start of training, and then I’ll work with my PT to modify my training plan so that I reduce the likelihood of aggravating old injuries or getting new ones. Here’s to hoping for a successful training period!

It went really well. I didn’t have any pain during or after running. I still don’t feel totally normal on that side, so perhaps a more accurate description is that I didn’t feel any different running without the belt. Which is good.

It was also very wonderful to not look like I have a muffin-top in my running tights!

I also bought new shoes last week and wore them running on Monday. They’re the same model I’ve been wearing: Mizuno Wave Inspire.  So there’s no big change there. I wasn’t sure if I would need a shoe with more support because, when I initially bought this shoe, it was with the intent that I would wear Superfeet in them. But a few months in, I didn’t like the Superfeet anymore and took them out.

The guy at the running store watched me run in the Mizunos and said that it looked great – no over or under pronation. Don’t fix it if it’s not broken!

I went to the PT on 1/4, and miraculously, my tail bone looked really good. It was only very slightly out of place. Mostly the joint was just stiff. My PT was shocked that I was doing so well, especially considering all the torque I’d put on my joint during our ski trip.

I went back to the PT a week later, and things still looked good. She even thought I could start biking again. I told her that she shouldn’t tell me that until she means, “You can do a really aggressive bike workout,” because I’m incapable of a leisurely bike ride. So we’re still holding off on the biking.

But I am running more, and faster! Last week I increased to 4 minutes running and 1 minute walking for 30 minutes total. And I bumped my pace up from 9:00 to 8:30. This week I’ve stayed at the 4-1 run-walk ratio (mostly to further adjust to the faster pace), but I’m hoping that next week I’ll be able to run for 30 consecutive minutes.

Perhaps the biggest victory is that all my running is pain-free!!! I’m able to go 3 miles at my current run/walk ratio and total time. That is twice the distance I was able to go pain-free last summer. And I’m showing no signs of injury fatigue in my calf when I quit at the 3-mile mark.

So…hooray! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I continue to improve.

Now that that news is out of way, let’s talk about my injuries. Basically, I’ve stalled out at improvement. In early December, everything was in place but still a bit stiff. Shortly after that, my tail bone and sacrum (I recently learned that they’re not the same thing) popped out of place and hasn’t been normal since. Due to the holidays and work travel, I’ve only been able to see the PT once every two weeks, and that doesn’t help me improve, just maintain.

I think I may try acupuncture (in addition to PT) because I’ve heard it can help, and at this point I’m willing to try anything. We’ll see how it goes. My next PT appointment is on Monday. Hopefully things will get better then.

I’ve done some self assessment, and I’m pretty sure that the left side of my tail bone is out of place slightly again. So frustrating. And I don’t get to see the PT again until next week because I’m traveling all of this week…which reminds me that I’m very much not looking forward to my 4-hour flights tomorrow and on Friday.

The good news is that I can still run without it hurting, although I’ve stayed at my walk 2, run 3 routine instead of jumping up to walk 1, run 4.

I’ve been massaging my glute muscles with a tennis ball and doing all the rehab exercises I’m supposed to do. I’ve also been wearing the belt more often in hopes that things don’t get worse.

But still, it’s frustrating. Hopefully it’s a minor setback, and I’m back on track in a week.

This week I’ve started running 3 minutes at a time for 30 minutes (2 minutes walk, 3 minutes run, repeat). So far it hasn’t hurt at all in my calf or my joint. I’m still not biking, but that will come eventually (I hope). My PT gave me the go-ahead to jump up to 4 minutes of running next week as long as everything continues to go well this week.

She also gave me a glimpse of what will happen after I’ve mastered 30 minutes of consecutive running. My goal is to get back to my base run of 5 miles. These days, my easy running is a 9-minute pace, or a 45-minute 5-mile run. My PT said that once I’m running consecutively for 30 minutes, she’ll have me increase my time running by 5 minutes (each week, presumably) until I’ve reached 45 minutes. Then I can start incorporating intervals and speed work again, under her advice, of course. Hooray!!!

PS: My obsession with exercise can sometimes make it hard to travel because my first thought on any given day that deviates from my normal routine is “how and when will I get my workout in?” So when I made my hotel reservation, my first question to them was, “Do you have a gym?” It turns out they do, but even better, they have a YMCA right across the street, and it’s free for hotel guests. Sweet!!! That means I can still swim. Now, I might have to get up at 4:30 in the morning to fit in my workouts or move them to 8:30 or 9 in the evening, but I would rather give up sleep than a workout. If only the YMCA in this city was open 24/7….