I went to Dr. Kirt Kimball yesterday to have him evaluate the pain I've
been feeling in my right hip. The good news is that after an
examination and x-rays he says my hip is in good shape. He confirmed,
as I suspected, that the cause of the pain is my shorter left leg and the resulting unevenness of my hips.
Background: In 9th grade (at age 14) I seriously injured my left knee playing youth football. I was clipped, taking a helmet to the outside of my left knee. It tore up the inside of my knee. My leg atrophied quite a lot as it healed. The doctor told me I needed to exercise it. Ironically, this is when I began running, which led to me lettering in track and cross country in high school. A year or two after the injury I noticed the hem of the left leg of my pants kept wearing out quickly from dragging on the ground. When I asked my Mom to start hemming the left leg shorter than the right, she took me back to the orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Kezarian. He measured my legs using x-rays and determined that my left leg was indeed just over 1" shorter than my right leg. My dad made me a leather lift that I wore for a while, but over time I quit wearing a lift. I limped a little, but have not really had any problems for about 30 years. I ran my first couple of marathons in 1982 at age 22 (PR was 2:52). After marrying Karen in 1984 and beginning our family (eventually six children), I gradually quit running. I started up again about 2002 (at age 42) and started running marathons again in 2004. In the past 6 years I've run thousands of miles, including 13 marathons and a bunch of shorter races. I remember one marathon a few years ago when my hip bothered me quite a bit, but the hip pain hasn't been chronic until this year, where it has gradually gotten worse throughout the year.
Dr. Kimball's diagnosis is that the adductor muscles surrounding my right hip are being seriously overworked. He compared it to my left leg stepping into a hole every step. The adductor muscles around my right hip have to work extra hard to step out of the hole. They are simply being overworked and getting exhausted.
So, I plan to do two things: 1) To treat the current inflammation I plan to take "therapeutic" doses of naproxen. I've only been taking ibuprofen or naproxen when the pain was bad. Dr. Kimball says for them to be effective anti-inflammatory drugs they need to be maintained at "therapeutic levels". He recommended about 500mg of naproxen twice a day for at least 4-5 days. He said the half-life of ibuprofen is so short you have to take it 4 times a day so, while it is an effective pain killer, it is not a very good anti-inflammatory.
2) To address the 1" leg length discrepancy, I plan to increase the height of the lift I wear in my left shoe to the maximum possible and still keep my shoe on. Dr. Kimball said that most people's legs are uneven. If I get within 1/4" or so, it should be good enough. I've run for a lot of years with about a 3/8" lift. If I can raise that an additional 1/4" to 3/8", it may be enough. For any more lift, I would have to look into an external lift on the sole of each pair of my shoes. I'm not even sure if that's possible on running shoes. I will cross that bridge later, if needed. I was worried I might have a serious hip problem that could end my running career. I'm very relieved that does not appear to be the case. Now that I better understand the problem and have a plan I can move forward. The adventure goes on.
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