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A search on this comes up with all "torn" acl and "hamstring graft" so let's begin anew.
I went over the bars biking yesterday and pulled in the one range that clipless pedals don't release. It was enough to yank the bike over my head and the muscle is definitely torn. I've had muscle tears before but nothing this big (or vital). Usually I pamper it for a few days and then start the stretching and light use.
Anything I need to be aware of or do to make this as short as possible?
Thanks
Don't get after anything too soon, you will only agitate it. Lots of fluids. I tore mine in the summer. About 3-4 weeks I felt 100% and went riding-it wasn't ready. Another couple weeks though and I was good. It would get a little sore but that was my warning to lay off a bit. These can be those nagging injuries if you don't give it time. Look forward to some sweet bruising.
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/s...ghlight=bruise
Heh....hopefully I'll get some cool colors out of it. You said pulled....I'm pretty sure this is torn. It's got that nice sharp sting whenever I try to engage the muscle. Pulled is probably in the equation as well though. I've got some funkiness from right behind the knee all the way up through my booticus maximus. I feels like I've got half a watermelon taped to the back of my femur.Quote:
Originally Posted by Conundrum
Thanks for the links UAN. Type in the title of this thread into google and you get things as trite as theoretical fantasy football player injuries. Pathetic.
4 weeks....hmmm
I was drunk when mine happened so it didn't hurt to bad at the time. I did get the sting but I really don't know if it was pulled or torn. I could walk but knee flexion didn't work so well. I didn't get it diagnosed by a doc...just knew I was out for a bit. Either way, good luck with it. Yours does sound more severe than mine though.
so sorry you had to cut your trip short. i hope that your recovery is faster than that...Quote:
Originally Posted by kidwoo
Suffered a torn calf (not completely through) muscle at the Utah mini a couple of years ago. Major blood pooling in the foot and all that good shit.
I scheduled an appointment with my massage therapist immediately. Got about 10-15 minutes of very light work the first session, then more like 25-30 minutes 2 days later. Had one more short (25-30 minutes) session before he left out of town. Thereafter, I just did light stretching and felt good enough to run or ski 2 weeks after the injury. Just to be safe, I took an additional week off.
So, for me, it was 3 weeks.
Advise: hydration, light stretching, movement without exertion.
Good luck!
Eww, sorry about the shit mang..
Some athletes that i know use a some ultrasound stuff on the tears, on top of massage,light strech and diet (water,something that speeds up your metabolism,but not crystal meth..).
Supposedly can speed up the recovery time for muscle tears 2 or 3 times.
Supposedly.
The ultra thing is something remotely resembling the ultras that they use for checking out babies. You do 1-2 times daily for couple of weeks.
Obviously you need some sports rehab facility with the equipment,and some money/insurance/connections for that.
For the money you can sell some bike parts or your poontang.
Eh,never mind.
treatement of muscle strains is as follows.
days 1-5 ICE compress and try not to irritate it too much
after 5 days you can move to moist heat ( hot tub, moist heat pack, warm bath.
only begin stretching when it begins to feel like you can come close to taking a full stride without having pain.
After that begin some GENTLE stretching. do not overstretch a hammy tear or you'll be asking for trouble.
you could proabably do some light biking, flat pedals only (no pulling up on the backstroke of the pedal rev)
at around 2.5 -3 wks you might be able to start some light strengthening of the muscle.
full recovery around 4-6 wks. depending on the extent of the tear. Mild strains would only last about 1-2 wks, moderate 2-3 wks, severe 3+
What Vinman said.I tore my Abductor while rehabbing my calf injury 3 weeks ago.My P.T. had me doing lunges and the leg was just to week to take it.He immediately went to ultrasound while icing it.Then it was a compression bandage and ice for 20 minutes every hour with elevation even while sleeping.Ultrasound the following 2 days after and no movement that will use the muscle.You need to attack this thing like it is the end of the world.Otherwise your recovery will take a lot longer.I`m moving fine now but still have to watch how I activate the torn area.
I would think it all depends on the location of the tear. No amount of rest was going to make my hammy magicallygrow 8 inches back down my thigh and re-attach... A doc wouldn't be bad for a diagnosis at least.
Wow.
thanks for the input guys.
Non active recovery has never been an option for any injury I've had. I watched my left leg turn into a toothpic when I was 14 from sitting immobile in a cast for 4 months. Every time since I've always pushed muscle/tendon use as long as I knew everything was in place.
I just got back from whistler tonight and I'll be on the phone tomorrow to see what insurance says bout PT coverage. Ultra sound sounds intriguing. I know I don't want a balled up scar tissued mess on a muscle I do use quite a bit.
The hamstring network still has something left. I can lay down on my stomach and do little curls so at least there's something still attached. So it's not as bad as yours theodore. Just out of curiosity, what kind of time passed before you were using it for anything worth a damn?
I do a lot of xc mountain biking so getting the muscle back shouldn't be a problem......just a matter of when I can start tugging on it.
My best friend is typically a heating pad once swelling goes down with most of my boo boos.
Thanks again for the responses.
I also did my ACL, LCL, and PCL, so take this with a grain of salt. I was injured on Dec. 5th '01. First surgery on Dec. 26th, 2nd in late March, off crutches in late April and jogging in PT in August or so. 3rd surgery in November, PT through that Jan. or so and I was back to "normal". I had major ROM issues though.Quote:
Originally Posted by kidwoo
Quote:
Originally Posted by Theodore
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
I have to ask.....
How the fuck did you do that?
And also......got any video?:D
Quote:
Originally Posted by kidwoo
I wish I had video! I'd laugh at myself rolling around on the ground. I was playing football with some friends. Had the ball, saw someone coming from the left so I cut to the right and hyperextended my left knee. Right as the hyperextension was at its worst I was hit from behind and my knee broke back and out and let out a hell of snap. I was swearing before I hit the ground and learned quickly that you can't walk those off.
You win.........
It was an experience. I made a lot of good friends throught therapy though, and had a few girls take pity on me... :D For honesty's sake the PCL didn't tear all the way through, it was still holding on by a sliver.Quote:
Originally Posted by kidwoo
Sorry to hear about your injury, KidWoo. That sucks balls.
Always looking for a silver lining... does this mean you will have some time to refresh your signature blog? I spit a mouthful of raisin bran on my keyboard last week reading that... looking forward to some updates ;)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chaka
I can't take credit for that. That's just a random web find I discovered shortly after a bunch of discussion of horses on trails in the sprocket rockets board. I thought it was pretty damn funny too.
I tore/separated my hammy from the growth plate playing football my freshman year. I iced it and heated it everyday; after heating it I would strech out really good. You don't want to rush it because it will only slow down the recovery even more, but I'm sure you know that. I had to stay off of it for quite awhile, but I could ride the stationary bike. Hopefully yours isn't as bad as mine was. Hope you have a speedy recovery.
I posted this in the wrong forum first but it belongs here.
This is getting good.
:biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin: :biggrin:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y26.../hamstring.jpg
Bump for some info that might benefit some folks.
......it got way worse than that pic btw.
Finally got an appointment with the doc I wanted to see, plus I needed to let some time pass for the swelling to subside.
Apparently two med school buddies of his are working for pro football teams where torn hammys are pretty much a part of life. A few years ago they tried injecting cortisone right into the tear, to slow down the fiberous networking of scar tissue. They're thinking was that with slowed regeneration, activity can rebuild the muscle better without making a dense knot that is the culprit with so many recurrences with this injury. They're findings were that recurrance dropped significantly.
So I've got this 13ft needle going into the back of my thigh thinking "fuck, how many of these can I take?" Good news......one time only. I know constant steroidal pokey pokes can cause problems so this was good news.
Injury date was Aug 21. At 8 days I was pedaling around a hardtail with flats on a big lakebed with pretty religious morning and evening stretches. At 17 days I tried a road ride in clipless pedals, with about 2 grand of climbing in it......not a lot of pain but weak as hell.
The next day, I saw the doc, had some words and got the cortisone. So at 19 days, just shy of 3 weeks from injury, I went on my first mtb ride. Didn't push it too hard on the climbs but rode for about 2 hours in clipless pedals and the thing seems to want to be worked now, not much pain but defintely found some no nos trying to bunny hop/manual in some spots........hard to break the instincts.......
The biggest concern my doc had was skiing. Obviously getting ejected foreward would be very bad. I'll post more when the time comes but I figured somebody might use this info.
wow k-dub... glad to hear you are sensibly working back up. hope that your program continues with success so you are strong enough to go confidently into ski season.
could you return to boarding (temporarily, if ya had to) to let it heal further during the winter, if nec.?
Quote:
Originally Posted by upallnight
I'm shopping for another splitboard as we speak.:D
dude, we're in the same boat!
In April I was in Tahoe, Cali for the USASA nationals.. I was having a blast when I took the forbidden "last run".... I'm very superstitious about last runs... But I went anyways.. I came off the jump for a back 5 and it was just too slushy.. I landed on my shoulder separating it and than somehow tore my hammy... I had about the same exact looking bruise as you did... This all happened 3 days b4 my competiton.... BIG BUMMER... I still competed (took a bottle of advil and wrapped the shit out of my leg and took 50th out of 80 :P)
Sat for a month or so.. I walked A LOT... Summer came and I started running a bit and than started biking... Here we are in december and I'm still feeling pain in it... It really freaks me out to feel the muscle mass difference between my two hammys.. It's actually 2:41am right now and I was freaking out about it so I googled for blown hammies and came to this... I'm glad to know I'm not the only one..
A Google search for "torn hamstring recovery time" comes up with this thread in the top results, and that's how I found this page. It's ironic, because I am also a TGR forums reader, but the find was unrelated. Now that I am mostly recovered, I wanted to share my experience. It's wordy but hopefully helpful to people. Bottom line is that you should be prepared for a long recovery if you've injured your hamstring severely...
Background: I tore my hammy on October 3 (~4 months ago). I'm 33, active, and in good health otherwise; not a "slow healer." My mechanism of injury (MOI) was somewhat unusual; I tore my hamstring while stretching, not while contracting. I believe the end result is basically the same in terms of injury, but it's worth mentioning. Basically, I was in a hurdler type stretch with my right leg forward, and I inappropriately and abruptly leaned forward. (I wish I knew what the hell I was thinking!) It didn't hurt at first but I *heard* it! The sound was like rubber bands snapping, and I felt a simultaneous strange sensation on the back of my leg above the knee. I was at the gym and immediately got an ice pack on it. My leg felt "weird" all day but didn't hurt until the next day. Even though it didn't hurt, my body was instinctively not letting me walk on it normally.
I went to an urgent care clinic the next day and got the diagnosis: hamstring strain (the official medical term, though tear seems more apt). The doctor would not give a firm prognosis, and this became a consistent theme for every practitioner I subsequently saw. They all said, a hamstring heals when it heals... period. But he did say they usually heal in 6 weeks on the long side (not true!). Based on my limited pain and bruising, he didn't think mine was too severe and so I figured I'd be on the low to mid end of that range. I started physical therapy that week and got good care: ultrasound and tissue massage twice a week, and daily stretching and rehab exercises. My physical therapist also would not give me a recovery estimate. I ended up going 2x a week for 2 months and then 1x a week for another month.
It was an excruciatingly slow process and also one I would describe as "non-linear". My PT warned (and he was right), that the biggest risk is over-exerting trying to rehab, and causing a setback. You've got to be patient!
The first 2 weeks, I was unable to walk remotely normally or contract the muscle at all. Then, I was able to walk with a normal stride as long as I did it carefully and deliberately and not too fast. This lasted for a week, and then I had the first of several setbacks. Went a bit too hard in PT (3 sets of 10 leg curls with 10 pounds was too much!), and I flared up bad. Back to limping and took a week to get back to previous point. At this point I was feeling compensatory pain in my left knee and right adductor (inner thigh muscle) from my constant strange posture and walking. After another week of feeling pretty ok, I did some exercises just of my upper body and core (pushups, situps, pullups), but to my surprise this really messed me up! For a week, I was in bad pain and could barely walk with tiny shuffle steps (this is 6 weeks post-injury now mind you!).
So, I saw a sports medicine doctor then who diagnosed adductor strain in addition to hamstring strain. I'm still not sure if this was completely from the original injury or from compensatory strain during recovery. He believed there was nerve impact from the scar tissue of the hamstring that was aggravating the adductor, causing it to be overactivated. (I've googled around and seem to see this correlation in other cases as well.) So the focus in PT shifted to the adductor and after another 2 weeks (2 months post-injury), I was finally feeling somewhat normal in being able to walk, spin on the cycle with no resistance, and do my PT exercises.
It took another month though to really stabilize and maintain that level of recovery. It was really a fine line between doing rehab exercises to maximize my recovery and going a bit too hard and causing a flareup. You've got to be really sensitive to any discomfort in the muscle and stop right away! Finally, after 11 weeks, I was able to introduce a 5 minute very slow jog every other day into my recovery regimen. The good news is that at 3 months, the beginning of January, when I wanted to start hitting the mountain at Squaw, I was able to. I'm limited to snowboard only; my PT and I didn't think the leg was stable enough for skis yet. And I used a neoprene thigh compression wrap to help provide some reassurance and support. Other than that and staying away from big drops, I was able to go hard and have fun.
I'm now 4 months post-recovery and my right leg is almost equal to my left again in terms of flexibility, and I feel generally fit and strong other than: 1) Running: still gradually working my way up on that. And 2) pushups: maintaining the plank position is surprisingly a huge aggravator on my adductor. Honestly, I think it may be 9-12 months in total before I totally forget about the injury day-to-day and am fully back to normal.
I've read that there are 3 general grades of severity: Grade 1 consists of minor tears within the muscle (recovery likely measured in days). A grade 2 is a partial tear in the muscle (recovery likely measured in weeks). And grade 3 is a severe or complete rupture of the muscle (recovery likely measured in months). I now believe I had a Grade 3 "tear" where muscle fibers completely snapped (the rubber bands I heard), but luckily only a relatively small amount of the total muscle fibers were affected. My MOI was unusual in that someone who gets a Grade 3 tear will usually be in the middle of intense exertion and then instantly on the ground in sheer pain, followed later by major bruising, and a large amount of the muscle tissue will be torn, leaving a major divot in the middle of the muscle. I had pretty minimal bruising in the days following the injury and only a small depression in the muscle. My physical therapist told me late in the process that my recovery time has been comparable to someone who comes in with a completely black and blue thigh, and I think the difference in symptoms was due my unusual MOI.
Bottom line: hamstring tear... don't do it! Warm up before exertion, maintain flexibility through stretching, and do some eccentric exercises regularly.
Here is a good info link I've found: http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cy...ringstrain.htm
The recovery times I see in this thread are amazing. I had a minor tear in my hamstring a few years ago - very high, right where the muscle attaches to the bone.
Even though I could get back to exercise quickly, it still hurt after several years when I stayed immobile for 2-3 hours.
...and something just seems wrong after re-reading this thread.
I tore mine at the beginning of spring (completely ruined my spring skiing season) last year pulling up on a heel hook climbing in the gym. I heard a loud pop and then fell. I found this thread the next day and it helped me to "design" my recovery plan. Thanks!
Very similar to others here, couldn't walk at all for 5 days, then slowly with support for another week, it got better and better over the next 2 months. Lots of icing, stretching, ROM type exercises, etc.
By summer I was riding my bike and doing long climbing routes in the mountains again. The only pain came from a ~ 8 foot fall off a rock to my feet while riding early in the season. Lots of hiking in the fall for hunting season and feeling OK. This winter I have been snowboarding and even got back on skis for the first time in years.
Here is where it gets weird. The side I tore is extremely flexible now, which seems the opposite of most other people. I have always been more flexible than the average guy, but now I can fold over my injured leg and stick my head on my knee with no resistance at all. For comparison if I am warmed up I can just get my forehead to my knee on the other side with considerable work and resistance.
The other thing is that despite all of the exercise I have done (running, squats, lunges, skiing, riding, skinning, postholing, leg curls) my torn hammy isn't getting any stronger. It is still at about one tenth the strength of the other when doing hamstring curls on a machine.
The tear was just under my ass toward the inside. I am starting to worry that I my have permanently detached part of my muscle. Is that even possible? I have been to a PT but not convinced she is totally understanding the situation (which could be my fault.)
Should I see a different PT ? Ortho? Accept the fact that I will never get it back the way it was and live with it? (My PT did say I was getting to the age where I would not heal like I used too.)
This thread has been helpful along the way, but I'm starting to get bummed about facing the fact that I may never have even close to the same strength in that leg and all of the repercussions of that.
Update... I'm 8 months post tear of hamstring and adductor maximus (lower inner thigh) muscles. Still dealing with weakness and diminished flexibility. Not an issue day to day but can't return to full activities (martial arts) because the muscles lack the strength and flexibility for kicking (harder actually on the leg that isn't kicking but is supporting weight). Not even close yet! After 5 months though I was solid enough for aggressive skiing and snowboarding, just needed to be careful against getting pitched forward and yanking on the hamster suddenly.
At this point I would need to do weights to try to rebuild the muscle further to normal, but I tore my meniscus in my other leg and am on crutches for 6 weeks, so that will have to wait. Heck of a year!
On the road to recovery, patiently!
great info... actually found this thread through a google search. I heard a pop in my leg durring a soccer game and looks like I have the long road to recovery.