Hi everyone,

After quite some time and a lot of frustration, I wanted to ask if anyone has been in a similar situation or can offer any advice of what to do next.

I injured myself playing football last June (08) and had what seemed to be problems with my abductor muscle which is the muscle which runs from my hip down the inside of my thigh. Its part of the groin area which can be very sensitive.......no jokes please.

I went to a sports medicine clinic with a good/decent Dr. We tried some different things such as Cortisone injections, shockwave therapy, dry needle (a variation of acupuncture) and nothing really helped. I was exercising and have massages from 2 different physio during these months.

Then after all this we did the MRI and he said it that there was a problem with the bones called symphesytis which basically just means bruising of the bones where the muscle runs from the hip to the leg.

As the other methods had not worked, I am now seeing an osteopath but things are moving slow and im not actually sure if its the right way to fix me.

Has anyone been in a similar situation?

I normally do so much sports and im finding it so hard at the moment. I can only swim very mildly which is boring as hell. I cant imagine how or if this can be fixed.

I plan also now to try acupuncture.

Would anyone suggest any other forms of medicine or treatments?

Sounds to me like the diagnosis of Symphasitis is a general term for the Dr. Saying I haven't got a clue. The diagnosis is a general inflammation of the pubic symphasis (The area where your pelvis meets at the front) and a quick Google search shows that it is more prevalent in women then men. The Pubic Shyphysis is a joint which is a little lax in women to help with childbirth, but I would imagine your would have had to give it a good knock or some pretty strange movement to cause it in a male. If this is the case I think you are in the unfortunate case of needing a lot of rest to heal it.

If conventional treatment is not working then you really need an accurate diagnosis to go further. I would suggest trying another doctor.

It could also be an inflamation of the attachment of the adductor muscles.

I would get a few more opinions though.

Sorry this can't be of more help, but the only thing I can think of that would help it if it really is symphasitis is rest, and that would mean pretty much laying down for a couple of weeks to be able to rest that joint totally.

have you thought about a chiropractor? A good one is worth his/her weight in gold

I guess Eire is right and the only thing you could do is to give rest to your body so it can heal and the imflamation go away.

I'd try some natural anti-imflamatory herbs they work slower but safer than anti-imflamatory drugs that could also have undesirable side effects

I do have at home "Uña de Gato" http://www.answers.com/U%C3%B1a+de+G...=IE7:SearchBox .This is a peruvian herb that is very effective, I have it on tea bags and drink it when I feel I need some anti-imflamatory, I think it is on sale on drugstores too ( expensive off course) I got mine from my last trip to Peru, I brough 2 big packs of it.

In a related note about doctors and quiropractors.

I had some pain on my joints problems last year when I just moved to Zürich, I could't do cycling at that time and tried many other sports including football that are high impact sports and then my joints were hurting. Specifically the Femur/Pelvis, Kees and Ankle joints

Went to the doctor, he sent me to the Quiropraxis, the speciallist there, used the 10 sessions the doctor prescribed, doing massage, accupuncture etc etc... nothing changed.

At some point I asked him about the sports I was doing, and he said probably my problems where because I wasn't doing stretching.

So I reserached the subject and learned how to strecht the muscle groups where I was having the pains, and the problems went away. So simply I was doing too much sport and my muscles were tight and pulling the ligaments and hence I had pain on the joints.

The quiropractor guy wanted to keep me in permanent treatment and to book a session a week.

i told him, "no thanks, I found that with the stretching the problems are gone".... He didn't look happy at all.

My guess is those guys prefer to have you chronically coming to have massage and accupunture that just telling you how can you fix you yourself.

FWIW

Poor you! On the acupuncture treatment just beware it won't do anything to address the cause of your injury. But it might help in the pain management. I bust a couple of discs in my neck a few years ago which was really painful and I was in agony for months. I had traction and physio etc but in the end gave it up because it just seemed to make things worse. When you're in acute pain you'll try anything and I gave acupuncture a go. I have to say it did provide some short term relief which I was grateful for but don't expect miracles. In the end it takes rest and time (sometimes a long time) for the inflammation to go down. What you have sounds a lot like footballers disease - osteitis pubis which might be what your doc diagnosed only under a different name. A rugby playing mate of mine had it when I worked in Hong Kong. I don't know a lot about it other than it's hard to treat and he ended up being treated in Australia by a specialist physio. Good luck!

Thanks for all the advice so far.

I have been resting for the past few months but there still doesn't seem to be any real improvement.

I hope the Osteopath is the way forward.

I heard that acupuncture was not just for pain relief but if done properly also give some kind of signals to the brain to repair the area the needle is?

I did take some kind of brittle bone medicine the Dr gave me but it didn't seem to help.

I guess because its been now 8 months since I first did it, I don't think it was an impact more over usage, im just surprised im still injured with almost no sign of recovery!

I have suffered from something similar, on and off, for about 15 years.

I had 3-4 months of physio last year which involved intense massage of the affected area, and ultrasound (twice a week for 30 mins total). As far as I can tell, treatment involves increasing the blood flow to the affected area, which apparently doesn't get much naturally - and therefore doesn't heal very quickly.

It sounds like yours may be worse than mine, but basically the problem is related to those muscles being too tight, and then sudden lateral movement leading to tears etc

The physio told me that my muscles are like this because of the way I sit, walk, and stand. Over time they've become shorter and therefore tighter, and more prone to injury. I was also told that these problems can be related to not having strong enough stomach/back muscles - and therefore not being able to stabilise your body properly during exercise. It was also suggested that I wasn't drinking enough water. Not sure if these are causes or not - but I have started drinking a lot more water anyway.

I've been ok for the last 3-4 months, and now I try to gently stretch these muscles whenever I get the chance. Before, during, and after exercise - but even during normal activity day to day, you can do some gentle stretching. Its important to hold the stretch for 1-2 mins, and dont overdo it, just do it till you feel its pulling.

When I finished my physio and started exercising I still had some pain, but it didn't become worse as I was exercising, it was just there. This has now dissapeared as I've gotten my condition back. I now always warm up with a jog, then some stretches, and also I try to force myself to start a game slowly. You should also look at the dynamic warmups on youtube, and do a mixture of these, and some static stretching, specifically targeting these muscles. You can also wear those compression shorts under your normal shorts - they keep the area warm which helps with blood flow (I also used to wear them under my trousers for work).

Basically, you, and I need to change these muscles gradually over time, so that they're no longer so tight.

Good luck mate.

Oh yes, and I have heard of the thing where the bone becomes inflamed, but again, the root cause is the same.

This could be very expensive, but there is a highly specialized clinic and research center in sports medicine in Vidi, Lausanne.

Many elite and pro sportsmen come there to get treated.

It can you get down when you have an injury for months and it just doesn't seem to get any better. Eight months is a long time, especially when you go through different treatments without seemingly any improvement. I hope acupuncture can help, all I can tell you is it only gave me temporary pain relief and I had it done by a Chinese specialist in Hong Kong. To be fair to him he never claimed it would do anything but help reduce muscle spasms, inflammation and pain - in other words the symptoms of the herniated disc. If what you've got is osteitis under a different name there's a lot of discussion about the injury and treatment from sufferers on this forum.
http://injuryupdate.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=1188

After 8 months maybe it's time to go to another specialist like Eire suggested if only for a second opinion..

Here is the link to the Vidi clinic in Lausanne ( French )

http://www.vidymed.ch/medecinedusport.htm

Lee

I have to say that what you've got sounds pretty similar to what I got around the age of 28. Though I went through periods of playing afterwards, I was never the same...for example I had nowhere near the speed I once had.

I must admit that while I had extensive rests and more or less a year off football, the injuries kept coming back, even if I was relatively fit. Obviously when I wasn't fit I'd do things like yank my hamstring out after a minute (in that vet's v EF game) or, when I gave it another go over here last year playing five-a side football, did something to my knee after a minute which I thought was bad ligament damage for a couple of weeks until I hobbled along to the doctors, had a scan and leanedit was a broken leg!

My advice would be to let the football go for this season but keep yourself in shape. In particular try and get your body alignement in order. I wished I'd concentrated on that. Basically one weakness can lead to an overcompensation somewhere else which is turns puts stress somewhere else causing another weakness. The hamstrings are particularly vulnerable to this.

Good luck and hope you end up making a full recovery. You're too young and good to succumb to something like this, but you've got to be both patient and determined to get over it.

Thanks for all the help and comments.

The Osteopath is concentrating on the allinment side of things and I hope there will be some progression.

Regarding keeping fit, its hard, I did start with strechting exercises 3 times plus physio, then moved onto running once or twice a week as there seemed to be some improvement.

Then 3 months ago they said it still wasnt healing and after the MRI to stop all fitness and only go swimming.

I go once a week but it doesnt do much for me.

Ive missed the snowboard season, football season and put on 6/7 kilos as well. It sucks monkey arse!