NOTE: This is part five in a blog series on my 15-year journey to better health. Want to start from the beginning? Click here to start with part one.

I thought the medical system would help me, again. And again, I was wrong.

Modern medicine is the third leading cause of death in America

–Gary Brecka, PBD Podcast

The Hip & Leg Pain

After losing the masseuse who had been keeping my pain at bay, I decided I needed to try again to figure out what was wrong with my hip and leg. The pain was now regularly traveling all the way down my leg, locking up my calf and shin, and causing a fiery pain on the top of my thigh and sometimes the top of my foot.

My parents had great results with a different PT clinic nearby, so I decided to give them a shot. At my assessment, they diagnosed me with bursitis in my hip.  Aside from the diagnosis, they didn’t give much of any explanation for the pain, the cause, or why it was traveling down my leg.  They recommended their strengthening physical therapy program for 6-12 weeks, and implied that would make things better.  I wasn’t fully convinced, but I was desperate, so I decided to give it a try. 

Unsurprisingly, after 10 rounds in that clinic’s PT program, I wasn’t any better off. I decided to look up a well-reviewed spine doctor in my area, and see if they could help. He took another X-ray, plus an MRI–all images came back as ‘normal.’ Based on my explanation of the problems, and where they started, he diagnosed me with Piriformis Syndrome, and suggested (wait for it…) PT!

I told him I’d done PT twice already, but he explained that PT for the piriformis muscles was different than PT for the spine, and referred me to a clinic he said was top notch, so I agreed, hopeful, but still doubtful. He told me that if PT didn’t help within 2–3 weeks, I should come back for a steroid injection—either in the piriformis or in between the L4–L5 vertebrae to see if we could identify the source of the pain.

At my first PT appointment in this third clinic, the therapist I got was cocky and condescending. He didn’t listen to my full history, and he told me my goal for the first week was to rotate my hips like a clock twice per day. I left more doubtful than when I arrived, but figured I had to keep trying. The second appointment was more of the same. More not listening, more exercises that didn’t even seem to come close to where the pain was coming from, and no progress, so I quit going back.

While the diagnoses were useless and PT wasn’t helping, and it was probably smart to quit (at least in terms of time and money), one thing I didn’t do that I should have was go back to the spine doctor right away to try out the steroid shots. That might have at least helped me rule out or target the area where the pain was stemming from. But I was overwhelmed, angry, exhausted, and sick of spending money on things that didn’t work, so I just gave up (again).

The Anxiety & Fatigue

About a year later, I finally decided to see a psychologist about my anxiety.  She ran some blood tests (all normal!), did an assessment, and diagnosed me with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which felt like nothing more than slapping a label on my symptoms. She prescribed me Hydroxyzine to take daily and told me to read the Chemistry of Joy. She had no explanation for why I would have anxiety, and no reason that it would happen without situational cause. I felt like I was on an assembly line and she was just checking boxes to get me through her program.

The Hydroxyzine was so strong it made me a zombie nearly falling asleep at work. I called her with this complaint, and she lowered my dose to half the original amount. Even the smaller dose left me sleepy–my choices were to either fall asleep or to be so anxious I was jumping out of my skin. But I had just switched over into a much more technical software engineering role at work, and I needed my brain alert, so I stopped taking the pills unless I was having a super bad day.

With my new engineering role, I learned to code in five different languages in the first year. I loved the challenge and the learning, but I was barely staying afloat. I started going to bed at eight PM with my now five-year-old son.

The next spring, three weeks before school was over, I realized I forgot to sign my son up for any kind of summer care. This was a big problem, as the school summer care program was hard to get into even when you registered within the first hour it was open, and I completely dropped the ball. There were other programs in the area, but they were more expensive, and less appealing for my son, since all his friends would be at the school’s program. After searching and finding that most other programs nearby were also full, I begged and pleaded with the school, and somehow managed to get him in. A month later, I realized I’d forgotten to sign him up for any summer sports too. I was going under.

Later that summer, I went back to my top-rated internal medicine doctor to see if she could help. I explained the problems with anxiety, exhaustion, and intermittent depressive moods. I told her I couldn’t survive a day without B-12, and asked her why that would be. She told me that was silly, that supplements couldn’t have that type of impact (later I would realize she was 100% wrong, and I would learn exactly why B-12 was so key for me). I asked her to check my nutrient levels, so she ran a bigger-than-normal set of blood tests, similar to what she’d done a few years earlier. But again everything came back completely ‘normal’ according to the lab’s reference ranges (later I would find out this was not the case either). I went home crying. I felt hopeless. I figured I must just be lazy and weak.

In the fall of that year, my husband sat me down and told me I needed to get more help… he told me something was definitely wrong, and that I needed to figure it out…. I could barely get through the day anymore.

In the fall of that year, my husband sat me down and told me I needed to get more help. I immediately lashed back–defensive and angry.  I said everything was fine, and that I had tried to get help but every doctor said nothing was wrong with me. In a calm and loving response, he told me something was definitely wrong, and that I needed to figure it out. He said I could barely get through the day anymore. Outside of work, he could tell that I had nothing left to give. I was not only dropping the ball with parenting items, but I wasn’t able to keep up with other responsibilities at home, nor was I able to spend any quality time with him, the kids, my friends, or my broader family. On the weekends, I was sleeping until noon or one or sometimes even two PM, and then spending the rest of my day sitting in our front room drinking coffee, trying to recover from the week and build up enough energy to do it again the next week.

I did a bunch of research online trying to find a good holistic practitioner in the area and found one with good reviews and a long wait list nearby. I booked an appointment with her, but could not get in for 10 months.

More Leg & Hip Pain

In addition to the holistic practitioner, I made another attempt to figure out the hip and leg pain. It was the most intrusive at this point, with my daily pain being between a 4 and 7 on a 10-point scale, so I figured if I could get that sorted out, it would make a notable difference.

To keep with my new focus on a more holistic approach, I tried a chiropractor for the second time. During our first appointment, this new chiropractor made me feel very hopeful. He took another X-ray, this one while I was standing up, and showed me that I had mild scoliosis. He told me one of my hips was higher than the other, and slightly rotated inward… These seemingly little issues, he said, are likely at the root of all this pain. He was not condescending and he listened to me. He applauded me for my mobility and credited it to my years of yoga, stating that he was surprised I wasn’t in worse shape.

Then he told me that he was not the best person to treat me, and he referred me back to the same clinic where I did PT last. I fought back tears, telling him how horrible my experience was at that clinic. He told me I need to make sure to see only the doctor who founded the clinic; that he was excellent and could help me. Although I would realize later that it would have been best to go, I did not go at that time.

The chiropractor also recommended a myofascial massage therapist to me, who I did start to see in hopes of some relief. Although different than the deep tissue massage I had gotten before from my favorite therapist, the myofascial massage helped. The masseuse taught me that the fascia can have memory, and that even when deep tissue massage resets all the muscles underneath, the fascia can cause things to lock up again if also not reset. I continued to see him for nearly a year, but like every massage routine before, it offered only temporary relief, so I eventually stopped due to cost and time.

By this point, my leg pain was so bad some days, it prevented me from doing anything else, even when I did have the energy.  On the worst days, I would cancel plans, and lay in bed crying as fiery pain shot down my entire leg. I bought a cupping kit recommended by the myofascial masseuse, and this at least gave me something to try while I was trapped in suffering. My body was betraying me. And no one could tell me why.

More Mental Health Issues & Illness

In spring of the next year, I wrote in my journal about an incident where I blew up at my daughter. She had started doing her laundry on her own less than a year earlier and did something wrong. I assumed it was neglect and on purpose, and lashed out at her for it, only to find out she didn’t know what she was doing, and just needed some instruction. Like the earlier call from school, her tears cut deep inside me–I needed to find a way to get better.

A month later I got shingles again, this time on my face. Thankfully, I was days away from my first appointment with the holistic medical practitioner. At our first appointment, she was very thorough, taking time to hear my full history, not just about my anxiety and energy issues, but also the leg pain, illness, and other issues. She said some fancy-sounding things about energy flow and body conduction and showed me the machine she would use to assess what each body needs–it had cables out to two medal bars. I felt like this was not very scientific, but again I was desperate, so I tried it anyway.

I held a metal bar in each hand and she went through more than an hour of assessments and at the end told me I needed to take five supplements each day, and to come back in the fall because they’ll need to be adjusted for winter.  I went back to her a few more times, as the supplements did make me feel somewhat better, but ultimately, the whole process felt too loosey goosey, so I stopped.

The one valuable thing I walked away from that experience with was a book on Adrenal Fatigue that I bought from her lobby. She must have mentioned it, and though I didn’t read the full book, I took the assessment inside, where the results showed that I was clearly struggling from this condition. I wouldn’t understand it fully until years later.  Another mistake I made at this point was not reading the book fully, and not following the guidance within, as I’m sure that would have helped me earlier. But I was barely getting by, so I really just needed someone to tell me what to do, and sadly, I still hadn’t found a provider that could do that.

More Leg Pain & Work Fun Too

Two and a half years into my new engineering role, after getting an exceeds expectations both years, I got a new director who I’d had a not-so-great history with, and he decided that I did not have sufficient skills for my current role, so he put me on a performance improvement plan. As a perfectionist and extremely hard worker, I did whatever I could to prove I was capable of keeping my engineering role. But after a while, I could tell the only way out was to leave.

While I was doing my best to manage the situation reasonably, I have no doubt the added stress contributed to my still growing health challenges. My final memories at that job are of me sitting at the large open table we worked around at the time, with ice packs stashed underneath, wrapped around my leg and hip, to take the edge of off the nearly intolerable pain.

I internet stalked my deep tissue masseuse from years earlier and found her working at a fitness studio a few cities away, and started to go to her again. As before, she was able to make the pain tolerable for the four months I saw her there, but then she left. Again I hit a dead end.

I reviewed my records on my leg and hip pain and realized that I’d never gone back to the spine doctor as he’d suggested to try a steroid shot. I tried to make an appointment with him but found that he’d retired. When I met with his replacement, he did another assessment and took another round of X-rays and an MRI, and said that while I did have a disc herniation around my L4/L5 vertebrae, it was on the opposite side of my pain, so he confirmed a spinal issue was not my problem. No one had ever told me this before.

And although he said my Sacroiliac (SI) joint X-ray was ‘unremarkable’, he diagnosed me with SI Joint Dysfunction. He suggested I move forward with a steroid shot, and to start with one in my spine, and to couple that with PT. He recommended the same PT clinic and founder as did the last chiropractor I saw. Since this was the second time I’d been referred to this specific PT, I decided I needed to give it a try.

When I went in for the spinal steroid shot, the physician administering it told me again that my hips were out of balance, and that if this didn’t work I should see a women’s pelvic/hip therapist. She told me I had hyper-lordosis, gave me a few papers explaining it and some exercises I could do to improve it, as well as a few pelvic/hip therapists she’d recommend. I didn’t have it in me to investigate this path now, so I shoved the notes in my folder of info to maybe follow up on at a later time.

Back at the third PT clinic for my fourth round of therapy, I came in for my first appointment with the founder. As I was in the waiting room, I noticed he had written a book on back care. When he came to meet me, I saw that he was older and had a disability that made it hard for him to move around. He was very kind and polite, and he spent time gathering my full history.

I was finally getting PT that was working, and I was so grateful…

Toward the end of our first appointment, he put me on the table with my bad side up, barely massaged the muscles near my hip, and the pain began to ease instantly. It was as if he had magic in his hands. The take-home PT activities he gave me were even more impactful, and while he wasn’t able to fully explain what was causing my pain, he did explain how the PT exercises would work to start to reverse the muscular problems exacerbating my pain. I was finally getting PT that was working, and I was so grateful to have found him.

Two months later, I got a letter announcing that the founder of the PT clinic was retiring due to health issues. I fell to the floor, and cried out in disbelief. Another dead end. After four different PT programs, a handful of X-rays and MRIs, years of massage and anxiety meds, a myriad of useless diagnoses, and thousands of dollars spent, health was nowhere in sight.

Stay Tuned

Please stick around for part 6, where I’ll finally be able to share some early progress on my health journey!