Do You Roll??

Well readers, its finally Friday, and its been quite the friggin' week.  Pardon my phrase-ology, but its been one thing after another.  And looks like it might be this way for a while.  Ugh.

Last weekend I painted my spare bedroom (which looks fabulous in grand shade of sage green!) and I don't know if it bent, stretched or stepped wrong, but I seem to have tweaked or pinched a nerve in my right hip.  As I'm sure most of you do, I checked my "symptoms" on the web -- who wants to pay a doc who's gonna say "Yep, you strained something, rest up and it will be fine...."  I mean, I raised a few kids, I was "Dr.Mom" for a while, so I know that standard answer.  Something more would be a little helpful!   A pinched nerve could be sciatica - "The term sciatica describes the symptoms of leg pain and possibly tingling, numbness or weakness that originates in the lower back and travels through the buttock and down the large sciatic nerve in the back of the leg."   OK, that might account for something.  There are a few stretches to be tried, so I'm working on those and they've helped, the pain has lessened as the week has progressed. 

There's also "snapping hip syndrome" where you feel a kind of 'snap' - it happens occasionally and maybe this is the problem. "In most cases, snapping is caused by the movement of a muscle or tendon over a bony structure in the hip.  The most common site is on the outside of the hip where a band of connective tissue known as the iliotibial band passes over part of the thigh bone that juts out  -- called the greater trochanter. When you stand up straight, the band is behind the trochanter. When you bend your hip, however, the band moves over and in front of the trochanter. This may cause the snapping noise."  When I am bent for a prolonged amount of time, the pain comes back and I have to straighten and walk in an upright position for a bit to get things back into place.   So this could be the issue as well.  Either way, both issues have similar stretches to do in order to feel back to normal. 

I've been working on the stretches, and also tried a foam roller at the gym today.  If you haven't ever tried one, wow... its pretty interesting! In many ways, its like a self massage - if you Google this, you'll see lots of images with different uses for the roller.  But when your body is resting on this roller, and you move back and forth, it creates a massage-like feel to muscles that might be sore like after a workout.  Wiki says:  "Foam rolling is a self-myofascial release (SMR) technique that is used by athletes and physical therapists to inhibit overactive muscles. This form of stretching utilizes the concept of autogenic inhibition to improve soft tissue extensibility, thus relaxing the muscle and allowing the activation of the antagonist muscle."  Ok, to me that was all fancy talk for "this feels really good!"  hehehe I used it today on my calves, my thighs, and my back.  I'm going to try it a couple more times and if the tension release I feel from it lasts like it did today, it might be my "last thing before going to bed" activity!

Happy Friday!