Recover from my hamstring injury

For the past week I’ve been feeling a burning sensation in the front of my injured leg. I’ve also felt what seems to be muscle cords or possibly tendons shifting in that area. It has me concerned that the damage to my hamstring has caused some nerve damage in my leg. I’m actually thinking about seeing a doctor about it.

I’ve been able to increase my mileage running and am no longer having the stiffness afterwards. I still have some discomfort just above my knee, but I think that will pass the more I start running again. I’ll mark this complete when I can get back up above 8 mph.

Things have been going very well for my recovery the past couple of weeks, at least if you don’t count my coming down with strep throat.

Even though I’m sick with fever, I decided I still wanted to try to run again. I worked myself up to a 6.5mph pace on the treadmill at the gym and ran 1 mile. I had some discomfort in my vastus medialis right above my knee on my injured leg, but no pain in my hamstrings. When I had gone about a half mile though I noticed some tightness starting, that remained when I stopped. I did some stretches to help loosen it, and then sat in the sauna for a while to help with blood flow.

Today I have no tightness or pain in that leg. I’ll probably try running again tomorrow. I know it will take me a while to get back up to my old pace and mileage, but it will come.

When I wrote my last update two weeks ago, I had just retore my hamstring. The first week my leg was sore, though not as sore as when I had initially tore the hamstring. In chatting with my personal trainer, he suspects I actually tore the scar tissue that was forming instead of fresh muscle.

This past week I’ve had no pain, and have been focusing on stretching exercises for my legs. It seems to be working. I actually got on the elliptical at the gym on Friday and Saturday and was able to use it without any discomfort, whereas a week ago there was significant discomfort.

I’m still not going to risk running yet this week, but if I can make it another week without a fresh injury, I’ll try it then.

My leg was feeling great this past week. I’d been increasing what I was doing with no pain and no limp. I actually had been thinking I’d try to run a little this coming week. That all came to a painful halt.

I was cleaning out my car today and leaned in to get something. As I did I felt a pop in the back of my right leg again. It wasn’t as painful as last time, but I knew right away that I had retorn my hamstring or tore it more or tore a different part of it. I’d forgotten already how painful your leg becomes from this.

I’ve got it wrapped and iced, but it hurts to put pressure on it. Last time it took over a week for the pain to go away. So much for doing any running. My limp is back too.

I went into the gym for the first time today since my injury. I didn’t do very much of anything, but concentrated on stretching and seeing how my leg felt. It actually didn’t feel to bad while I was doing it, but afterwards it told me it wasn’t happy with me. This is just going to take time to heal.

It’s been five days since I tore my hamstring. There isn’t normally any pain in my leg now and I’m walking without a limp. That doesn’t mean it’s healed though.

Today as I was driving from work home, I spied a man lying in the road ahead of me being assisted by a woman. I pulled into the closest driveway which was about a semi-truck distance away. I started to jog toward the patient and the first two steps were painful enough to make me drop back to a walk. So yes, it’s definitely torn and no I can’t run yet.

You have experienced partial tearing of the muscle fibers. You may experience:

• affected walk, including potential for a limp
• twinges of pain during activity
• visible swelling
• applying pressure increases hamstring pain
• pain when flexing the knee, especially against resistance
• inability to lock the knee (straight leg)
• inability to bend the knee fully