“Twenty years ago, while doing a mile repeat workout as part of my training for a marathon, I felt a sharp pain in my groin. Over the twenty years since, the pain grew more and more persistent and often would radiate up through my hip and into my lower back. I tried many things to help this pain that consistently hampered my training, until about one year ago when I met Dr. Kathy Dooley. I stopped running for over six months at one point as a recovery method, only to have this sharp pain return after less than two weeks of running. At that point I stopped running completely, but continued to do cardiovascular exercise on elliptical trainers and exercise bikes, but the pain continued to get worse. I went to many different doctors. An orthopedic surgeon told me that if I continued to run, I would ultimately need a hip replacement. An OD checked my skeletal system and could not find anything, but suggested that I have a surgeon check for a hernia, because it may be the intestine getting pinched by atorn portion of the muscle. I went to the surgeon and I did have a triple hernia operation. This did not fix the groin, hip or back problem. I went to chiropractors and found that that did nothing at all. In 2010 I did an all-day strenuous hike. By the time I got off the plane home, I could barely stand up straight. A friend convinced me to go see one more chiropractor. I had nothing to lose, so I went to see Dr. Dooley. She told me that my groin, hip and back were not the problem, but the symptoms. The problem was twofold, one part being my groin and hip and the other my lower back. My glutes were not firing on time and consequently, the small muscles in the groin and hip were working to compensate for them. The groin, being the smallest of these, would pull first and if I was not smart enough to stop running when that bothered me, my hip flexors would go next. The lower back was just as interesting to me. In thinking that my hips were not strong enough and that was why it hurt so much, I did an over abundance of hip strengthening. Well, my hips got so tight that they could not swivel appropriately, so my lower back was compensating. This was the reason that my back kept giving out. Dr. Dooley gave me a number of exercises to get my glutes to fire on time and to loosen up my hip flexors. Within a month, I was running pain free most of the time. I signed up for the 2013 LI Half Marathon for the first time in ten years, with Dr. Dooley’s help.”
