My Sports Hernia- Part I

On April 14th, I had pelvic floor repair surgery for a sports hernia.  The problem really presented itself last November.  After racing Kona, I needed some motivation, so I joined the Somerville Road Runners to run indoor track with them.  That turned out to be short lived.  During my second track session I felt pain in my left hip/ab area.  It could have been a number of things....tear, pull, strain....but for some reason, I knew it was a sports hernia....I just did.  I took time off in hopes that it wasn't....and it would heal on its own.  It didn't.  I ran sporadically in November and December.  But, the pain kept getting worse.  The thing for me wasn't so much the running....it was the afterwards.  After running, usually the next day, I would be in bad shape....not being able to walk w/out pain.  It was debilitating.  Fortunately, running was the only thing that really caused the pain.  I could still swim, bike, ski, etc.  In fact, skiing is what caused me to push my surgery out until April.  I had a big ski trip planned in February, so I waited to see a specialist until afterwards.  In retrospect, I would have set up my surgery a little sooner.  But, as I had never had surgery before, I had no idea how it worked.  I didn't realize that the actual surgery can be 2-3 months after the visit with the specialist.  Since I really wasn't planning on any big racing this year...it really wasn't a big deal.  In fact, the forced time off may be the best thing that could have happened to me.

After my big February ski trip (Big Sky Montana), which was epic, I started to look into seeing a specialist.  My friend, Jeff, who's a doctor, gave me a list of recommendations....but ultimately told me that there's a guy in Worcester who is the best...Demetrius Litwin out of UMass Medical.  I had done a lot of internet research.  I had read about many doctors who performed the procedure to fix a sports hernia.  Dr. William Meyers was the closest specialist that I had read about.  I'm sure there were others...but Dr. Meyers was supposedly the best.  I hadn't even heard of Dr. Litwin.  But, Jeff assured me that not only was he good, but he trained with Dr. Meyers.  Dr. Litwin is the head of the Department of Surgery at UMass, a teaching hospital.

My appointment with Dr. Litwin was in the beginning of March.  I was pretty excited about it, because I really wanted to get healthy.  This was the longest I have gone without running in 20 years....it was getting frustrating.  I sat down with Dr. Litwin and he started asking questions.  At the end of appointment, we had no answers.  He basically told me that it could be a sports hernia.  He told me that we could wait to see if it heals on its own....a few months to a few years.  I think he saw the frustration in my face....so he told me that he was sending me to his colleague, Dr. Brian Busconi, head of Sports Medicine at UMass.  I'll have to say, as nice at Dr. Litwin was, I really wasn't too fond of him after my visit.  After trekking across Worcester to a different campus, I saw Brian Busconi.  He was definitely a bit more laid back....a guy's guy.  I felt that he understood me.  He knew I wasn't about to wait a few years to see if the injury would heal on its own.  I'm about to turn 40....and as much as I want to be doing this in 20 years.....I don't have too many more "fast" years left.  I wasn't about to take the wait and see approach.  Brian scheduled me for an MRI.  The MRI didn't show anything....which wasn't surprising.  Sports Hernias rarely show up.  My surgery was scheduled.  The actual surgery is handled by both Brian and Dr. Litwin....two doctors.  Now, I just had to wait until April....(to be continued).