i recently strained my groin, nothing serious I guessed at about a week off then a week light recovery. about a week after I strained it I was getting out of the shower and my groin clicked, and it seemed to eliminate almost all my discomfort. I will still leave it for another week but the click got rid of all my pain. has this happened to anyone else, and does anyone have an idea what could have actually happened. I assumed it was muscular/tendon related.
Where exactly was/is the pain of the strain? Did the click occur in the same area? If not, where?
Regards,
Robin.
I have also had my hip click whilst suffering from a groin strain on a number of occasions, normally when i have been resting and the joint is cold. It occurs when i move my leg out to the side (like doing the splits) the joint will feel restricted and then click freeing it up and releiving any pain. I have assumed it was fluid in and around the joint, as a byproduct of the injury, causing it?
Anyone any ideas?
yeah the strain was right up in the joint. the pain was centred in the middle of the joint and hurt when i lifted my knee up or my leg out to the side. it kind of radiated inwards and upwards. the click occured almost exactly where the pain was. I am quite a ‘clicky’ person but have never experienced it in my groin. it has regressed a little bit but it seems like the worst disappeared with the click.
Contrary to what most people think, the joint line of the hip joint is not located in the groin but higher and more lateral (to the side). I have attached a picture and have drawn in the thigh bone (femur) in black and the joint line of the hip joing in red. The actual joint lies much deeper (further back) than it appears on the image, however, so that it actually lies to the side and not in front of the pelvis.
Is this really where your pain and the click was located? If it was then your hip joint might have been slightly out of place causing pain and reduced range of motion and could have slid back into its normal position with a clicking sound. This, however, would not have been a groin sprain then.
If it was a groin sprain that you suffered you should have felt the pain more in the area circled in blue. If this was the case the click was probably caused by muscular adhesions caused by scar tissue resulting from the injury. The fibres of the scar tissue might have held together parts of your muscles and when these fibres finally tore (the click) these adhesions were broken thus allowing for less restricted and therefore less painfull muscular movements.
Regards,
Robin.
Robin, could the continual wearing of many layers with tights and tight waist bands cause a problem originating from the LFC nerve?
from your diagram robin I would guess it was more the ligament. its hard to remember a pain once its gone - it was too high for the blue area im pretty certain. its a long term ‘niggling’ injury that has bothered me for years. It has been suggested to me by my physio that it could all be down to a trapped nerve in my lower back, but im not sure. I have had bad lower back and pelvic problems.
Entrapment of the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve most commonly occurs under the inguinal ligament, which is just over the part of the nerve that the line points to in the image I attached to my previous message. It is one of the three most common nerve entrapment syndromes and would manifest as pain, numbness, weakness or tingling feelings on the anterior thigh. I waist band should not really be able to cause it (too high) but as for the wearing of tights, I wouldn’t say it’s impossible.
Regards,
Robin.
out of interest robin if I continued to exercise intensely while experiencing this pain (say its a trapped femoral nerve for now) would it get worse or cause any permanent damage?
Suggy,
That depends very much on what the cause of the problem is. If it is a nerve (probably not the femoral nerve as this one does't supply the area where your pain is located) that is entraped or irritated for example by a herniated (slipped) disc in your upper lumbar spine it might very well get worse if you keep on training, especially with compressive loads on your spine such as in squats. If it is less drastic than a hernia the nerve could also be irritated by what chiropractors call a subluxed (= misaligned) vertebra. If it is a muscular injury it will most probably also get worse with continued training. Muscular injuries always cause some degree of permanent damage, btw, as they heal with scarring. Peripheral nerves can heal, but if severely damaged that can take a very long time.
It could, however, also be a lack of nerve supply (due to some kind of spinal involvement) that lead to weakness of the muscle thereby predisposing it to injury and possibly also causing reduced ability to heal.
I would suggest to see a chiropractor to check whether any nerves are involved here.
Regards,
Robin.
I have seen both physios and chiros about my various problems. I do have misaligned veterbra due to slight scoliosis. This is coupled with pronounced lordosis and a tilted pelvis, which has basically been causing severe groin and hamstring problems. Oh well thanks for your help robin. Think I’ll start stretching again - never should have stopped.
That sounds like a leg length inequality to me. Maybe you need a heel lift.
Heh you know your stuff. I believe the chiro said my legs were indeed not the same length but I was under the impression that this was as a result of my twisted pelvis, not the cause. Is this correct? I was doing a lot of stretching but then I just kind of stopped and them boom - a reoccurence. Both the chiro and physio have targeted my lower back and I also thought I saw good results from finally stretching out my hip flexors. Because they were so tight they were pulling my pelvis forward and this was aggravating my lower back condition as it was being pressed into it. What do you mean by heel lift?
If your pelvis is higher on one side while you are standing with both feet parallel and next to each other it is (almost) always due to a leg length inequality. Some chiros will object to such a statement, but if you think about it it makes sense. If you are standing on both feet there is no way that something in your back could pull up one side of your pelvis without the foot of the same side being lifted off the ground.
This is different when you are lying, as in this position your back muscles can pull up one side of your pelvis which will make it look like the leg of that side is shorter while it actually isn’t.
A leg length inequality can be either functional or structural. If it is structural it occurs because of a shortened femur (thighbone) or tibia (shinbone) or both. If it is functional it could be due to a dropped arch of one foot a one sided knock-knee, etc.
If one leg is shorter than the other the pelvis will be lower on the same side and the spine will form a scoliosis in trying to compensate for this pelvic tilt. Almost every single person has some degree of leg length inequality, pelvic tilt and scoliosis but if one leg is more than about 6 mm shorter it might lead to problems especially in athletes who put a lot of stress on their musculoskeletal system.
A heel lift is usually done by putting a thicker insole into the shoe of the shorter leg than that of the longer one. In more pronounced cases it can also be done by actually thickening the heel of your shoes. In this way the pelvis and spine is brought into balance again.
The people to go to for heel lifts are podiatrists, but there are also some chiros who do them.
Regards,
Robin.