Things aren’t always what they seem.
It’s why testing and having an open mind are so important. In this case, most commonly, a bunch of other therapies and stretching and strengthening exercises would have been prescribed.
But that would have missed the mark by a long shot.
This early 20’s runner came to me with hip flexor pain. She was training to run a half marathon. But every step she took was becoming more and more painful.
I knew the odds were the problem was going to be with one or more of these muscles:
- Psoas
- Iliacus
- Rectus Femoris
When I tested them, both Psoas were in a weak state (neurologically inhibited).
The question now was, why? Were they just injured? Or was there something else causing an issue?
Turns out, it was her kidneys. More specifically a bacteria infection in her kidneys.
I then checked her Peroneus Longus muscles on the outside of her lower leg. They were also weak suggesting a problem with her bladder as well.
The bacteria infection was both in her kidneys and bladder.
She cracked a huge smile and said….
“That is so awesome. I just got done with a round of antibiotics for a UTI!”
She hadn’t told me this because she thought it was irrelevant. It turns out, it was anything but irrelevant.
And, the antibiotics did NOT do the trick. The infection was still there (which I see very, very often).
Here is how it works:
- Think of the brain as a computer and the spine as a circuit breaker.
- Irritation happened in the kidneys and the bladder.
- The sensory nerves registered this as stress and sent the signal to the spinal cord.
- From there, the computer tripped the circuit breaker to relieve stress on everything that was on that same nerve circuit.
- In this case the Psoas and Peroneus Longus muscles were shut off.
No different than a circuit breaker in your house.
- If your toaster is malfunctioning, the breaker trips to save everything on that same circuit.
- The lights go out, the refrigerator doesn’t work, etc.
- The lights being turned off are not the problem, only a symptom.
- You need to fix the toaster and reset the circuit breaker.
I find these types of problems all the time.
And when we get tunnel vision, we miss the big picture. We miss the real problem. Nothing was wrong with her Psoas muscles except that her body had shut them off to conserve energy and protect.
We had to get to the infection to get to the root.
I found the remedies she needed and sent her on her way. She will heal up just fine.