Andrea: Athletic pubalgia Post-Surgery Weeks 3-6

See related posts: Surgery and Weeks 0-2

The rehab rollercoaster continues...

I feel like I am on a never-ending cycle: pain ("I'm never going to get better") - some relief / not too bad ("I'm getting better!") - aggravated / pain ("this is never going to end")... repeat X a million times.

The good news here is that the pain doesn't get quite as bad each subsequent cycle, the bad news is that I can't seem to truly improve in my overall progress level...and I am a mental basket case. 

Summary of Weeks 3-6 post-op:

The beginning of this block of time was not great. Quite frequently I had sharp pains in my left abdomen and pubic bone. The left SI joint felt out of place and I was constantly trying to pop it back into place. On the right abdomen, the seroma still had a ton of fluid and hurt a lot like the pain prior to surgery. I had small, tight bands of tissue on the right side that became more pronounced/painful with activity.

The steri-strips came off right at 3 weeks. It probably wasn't until a week later that I noticed that the end of the left incision had not completely closed. It would occasionally have a white discharge or bleed with redness around the area. I waited a few more days and then Dr. Meyers put me on an course of antibiotics to make sure this reaction didn't become a full blown infection. 

I started doing some mild stretching and massaging of the incisions and muscles. This progressed to more aggressive by the end of six weeks. I have been going to PT Danny 2-3x a week and that time is almost entirely devoted to soft tissue work on the adductors and incisions (...and talking me down from the ledge). We added many new exercises to my therapy as well.

By the end of week 6, the right seroma had decreased in size so there was only a little fluid left, although it still swelled during exercise. The left "reaction" went away and I finished off the antibiotics.

My typical day:

Morning - heat, massage, and stretch
Afternoon - walk, bike ride, and/or weights
Evening - PT exercises, heat, and ice

New exercises since last post (still doing most of the others from weeks 0-2):

-Bent knee fall outs
-Single leg raises
-Modified planks -> planks
-Ball squats -> Modified squats -> squats
-Modified lunges -> lunges
-One leg bridges
-Adductor squeezes (Note: it was difficult to do adductor exercises on the left side because it would increase pain at the pubic bone significantly, so I had to do some modifications and only do them when it didn't increase pain.)
-Stretching of hip flexors, abdominals, and adductors

I tried running a couple times in the last 4 weeks just to see what it feels like, but I can tell that my body isn't ready for that yet. The elliptical causes too much irritation, so I'm sticking with mostly walking and biking for now. And playing with my favorite puppy!

Thank you Amiee for letting me borrow Roo for happiness :)