Hip Woes...

There are periods of time that I forget and subsequently become lazy about the specific and tedious care my body needs in order to maintain homeostasis. You see, my tendons and ligaments are something similar to an old worn and overused rubber band; they stretch more then they should, and they have very little pull resistance. Due to the relaxed nature of my tendons and ligaments, I have to be diligent in exercising, taking supplements, and stretching.

What happens when I am not diligent?... I dislocate a hip and crumble to the floor.

Seriously, that happened to me last Sunday.

The frustrating thing about all of this is, I am aware of my issues with my joints, but somehow manage to forget and/or push my body just beyond what it can handle... The even more frustrating thing is when I dislocated my hip this time, I did it stretching. No joke, I had spent the whole weekend dancing, and really it was the first time I had worked out in more than two months.. However, I did not think about the fact that spending all weekend dancing would fatigue my core and hip muscles, which would then affect my bodies ability to keep itself together.

On Sunday I was doing a fairly normal standing leg stretch when my right hip popped about eight times and shifted dramatically. (Before continuing, let me explain, I dislocate things on a somewhat regular basis.. It is always painful, but no joint is as painful as the hip... Ok, well maybe the jaw, but that happens less regularly.) Thankfully when I dislocated my hip I was holding onto a railing, otherwise I likely would have fallen; instead I lowered my leg, and then slowly crumbled to the floor trying to draw as little attention to myself as possible.

Pain. Massive amounts of pain when you dislocate your hip.

I spent the next twenty minutes trying to see if I could pop my hip back into place myself. I succeeded in popping it a few more times, but not really back into socket. And, since I was getting ready to take the last workshop of the weekend, one of which I had been looking forward to all weekend, I proceeded to dance another hour. By the end of the workshop, my pain threshold was getting a good test, but my almost equally intense desire to not make a big deal about the pain was also in full effect.

Thankfully, I was able to find a friend in town willing to inflict even more pain on me in order to put my hip back into place. The only bright spot in dislocating my hip is it provides incredibly hysterical stories later of the process of talking friends through how to put my hip back, fielding their questions, then laughing at their reactions to the entire thing.. And, trust me, I am perfectly aware that it is a completely ridiculous situation to start with, which only adds to the humor of it all... after the pain has subsided.

Currently, I am dealing with residual effects of a dislocated hip, which basically include a really sore hip joint, and a lot of somewhat painful but careful stretching. As luck would have it, I have weekly visits to my chiropractor and he is awesome; he put me through some tests to figure out where my hip was a few days later, then gave me some tips and things he wants me to do to speed up recovery.. but until then it feels unstable and sore. Lovely.