I have had a hurt hamstring since last summer. At least. No swelling, but there is pain during both flexion and extension of the knee, and pain when I’m sitting. If I run on it, I have to take a few days off before I can run again, because it starts hurting bad after about 5 miles.
I never went to a doctor for this, and I don’t even have an idea of what it could be. I would think a strained hamstring would have healed by now, especially since I have been essentially sedentary during the winter months. Anybody have any tips or ideas? Will it ever heal? Should I see a doctor at this point or will they just send me on my way with a stretching routine?
Ooh, follow-up question: if I see a doctor, should I tell them this has been hurting for months or should I act like it just happened? I heard doctors don’t care much about chronic conditions, and you have a better response for acute problems.
Hammies are difficult and if you don’t let it heal properly, you will keep aggrevating it. I’ll let posters with more knowledge reply about potential scare tissue build up, but it makes sense that if you keep reinjuring the same muscles that scare tissue will build up. It might be worth it to make an appointment with a Sports Doctor. I have one in town that treats pro athletes and Olympic runners. There may be a Sports Doc that treats similar or has great recommendations from people you know. I found this Sports Doc as a recommendation from a local high school track coach.
You should be at least using R.I.C.E. (as the standard treatment). I did pull hamstrings which was aggravated by running. Used R.I.C.E. treatment. After resting the hammie, started learning the Chi Running technique and haven’t pulled or had difficulties with hamstring issues since (2 plus years ago).
I second others…my ex tore her hamstring, partially. Let the injury settle in, let the scar tissue settle in, and once she started to do something about it, it was a big issue. Took more than a year to get back to normal.
MRI to see the extent of the damages.
Cross friction massage to get rid of the scar tissue (or whatever is appropriate)…let it heal before going on…
I had a nagging hamstring injury on the left side for over a year. Massage therapy helped, but the problem didn’t fully resolve until I had a running coach video tape me and then correct some flaws in my technique. The specific flaw that seemd related to the hamstring injury was that I did not swing my right arm as much when I ran - in fact I hardly moved it at all - and somehow that caused me to do something with my left leg movements that aggravated the hamstring injury. Now that my form has been corrected, the hamstring problems have gone away. So your running form might need to be looked at. Just my 2 cents.