recovery setback

[toroqu]

Today marks  3 months since my RBHR. I have had a great recovery until one week ago. I have been consistent with my exercises for strengthening the muscles surrounding my hip. I have also been slowly ramping up my aerobic workouts to about 3 1/2 to 5 hours per week consisting of cycling on my trainer, elliptical and stairmaster. Well, last week I was riding my bike on the trainer when I started to feel some pain in my groin/hip flexor area. I dismounted and experienced fairly significant pain in the upper groin for about 20 minutes. I was able to walk if off but since then I have had some swelling in the upper thigh/groin and at the incision. Also, I have been experiencing bursts of minor pain mostly in my lower shin and ankle. My hip flexor is not really sore but I do feel some pain when lifting my leg and have lost some ROM. I am uncomfortable while sitting as well as most sleeping positions This minor yet very irrititating pain is what I experienced just after my surgery. I spoke with my doctor and he felt that I had strained my hip flexor. Has anyone else experienced this and how long did it take for the pain to go away? I still have it after one week and it is driving me crazy!

[Mudpro]

I don't know if this will be of any value or not, but...

I've been religious about riding a stationary recumbent bike since the end of about week 2.  I'm on the thing twice a day no matter what.  At first it was just an issue of trying to get some movement going in the hip with no resistence at all on the trainer.  As I progressively got better, I would extend both the duration and the resistence on the bike.  I wanted to build up some stamina in the process of helping the hip, so I would ride for as long as I could; what does that mean.  I stopped when I began to feel a twinge of pain in my groin.  The next time I backed off on the resistence a little bit and tried to extend the duration; once I did that, I would bump up the resitence, again until I got a twing of pain and I stopped and began the routione all over again.

You're a little further along than i am, so I may hit a similar problem, but my first thought when i read your accoutn was, "did he push himself too hard on the bike?"

[Todd]

I've had days where my I pushed it too far and had similar pain in the hip flexor that you are describing.  Total lack of strength to lift the leg, pain, no ROM.  Typically, I ice and rest until the pain is more subdued.  I've also been perscribed 800mg of ibuprofen 3x/day to help reduce the inflamation.  That hip flexor is a really tempermental muscle group for me, and from my experience, you start over with it and ease back into strengthening and repairing that muscle.  Ice afterward and give it some time.  I've gone to sleep after a horrible day of pain and woke up the next morning feeeling great.  Hope this helps a little.  Hang in there.  It will get better.
todd

[toroqu]

Thanks for the input. I now know that I pushed  too hard on the bike.  I have been icing and it helps but the Ibuprofen has limited effect. I guess I will just have to wait it out.

TQ

[Ronnie]

Its been 1 year for me. I had the pain in the groin area once in a while when i worked too hard and did not get a good streach after the workout. I also got it in my good side. I think the key is to streach after every workout. No pain for 3 months now.