Physical therapy for Gluteus Muscle and Sciatic Pain

My next step in this pain saga moved on to getting some physical therapy. About a week and half ago I saw Emily at Bethany Physical Therapy http://www.therapeuticassociates.com/Locations/clinic.aspx?id=25.
She is also a certified yoga teacher with experience in Iyengar and Anusura style. At my last visit this Thursday the following happened.

My left hip seemed to have rotated forward and right hip backwards and the muscles around it have strained/inflamed causing these shooting pains down my leg. She helped re-align with some posture adjustments and then the following exercises were recommended (and I reproduce with her permission)

1. Paraspinal Release with Left Obliques
a. Place both fo palms on a 3-4 inch block and place your feet directly in front of you.
b. Pull your shoulder blades down and ack and dig both of your heels into the floor as you bring your hip up and off the floor by pushing through your arms.
c. Once u lift up round your back by tucking your bottom up or in
d. Then side bend your trunk to the left so that you left hip comes up. Pelvis is turned to the right. Abdominal muscles are engaged
e. Maintain firm contact with your right arm and right leg so that you feel your right inner thigh
f. Hold the position for 4-5 deep breaths
g. Repeat 2 more time per day.

2. Standing Un-resisted Wall Reach
This is similar to an Utkanasana but with your bottom on the wall for support support, arms not raised but touching your knees and the back rounded as you take 4 deep breaths expanding you back as you inhale and then reaching forward on your knees and legs as your exhale, so you are eventually looking down on your knees.

She recommended hip opening type yoga exercises. So I was back to Nuvana's place on Friday evening for another Yoga Therapy session. And what an amazing change. Please come back for the next post along with a video.

Namaste!

Gluteal pain -- in physical therapy

I have been off regular yoga classes, but continued my yoga therapy on my own and since last Sunday the pain had subsided quite a bit. It was helping but not eliminating the pain. My physician suggested physical therapy. I was fortunte to find a therapist who is a also a certified anusura yoga teacher and has also done a fair amount of Iyengar. I had an enlightening meeting with her today. I have been so absorbed with the elections and work, I have no energy to write about my experience today with her, but it was eye opening and it gave me a deeper appreciation of being a yogi and being self aware of my body and my muscles and what I have been doing to self correct the problems I am having. She has given me two exercises and within 15 minutes of doing those exercises I felt even better. I have become even more self aware since this morning. Not to become too philosophical about this, but yoga does do the body good, but self awareness does the soul even better. May your day bring you much peace and love, as no money in the world can buy you that. It comes from self awareness!

Namaste

No Yoga Today with Nuvana

Since I am in resting mode and waiting for physical therapy to start next week (I found a therapist who is also a certified anusura yoga teacher), I didn't make it to Nuvana's place for yoga therapy. Instead she advised I roll up a towel and sit on it while I work and try a supported "supta padanga gusthasana" on the stair case at home. Worthwhile try. I have mostly just tried to relax the leg with the pigeon pose folding of my left leg. The pain continues to sustain itself and experts tell me it could be sciatic pinched nerve.

I do plan to attend her her back-care class at sunset yoga center tomorrow http://sunsetyoga.com/ which should be less taxing and more rest-full. In the meantime enjoy another one of my iyengar yoga video picks from youtube. It has no music but a nice set of surya namakar. And for those of you interested in expressing an opinion please visit my alter ego at http://haveopinion.blogspot.com/. May the sun shine in your life with vigor and energy of surya namaskar pose! And sunshine is renewable energy!

Namaste

Iyengar style:


Ashtanga Style just for kicks:

Another inspirational yoga video

Well folks my journey with pain continues. It has subsided but not gone. I will be going through additional physical therapy. Its unclear what is wrong with my leg. I just hope its not a disc problem. I may need an MRI. Whatever it is I know I will overcome. I am in resting mode right now but I keep performing certain stretches that keep the pain in control. I changed my office chair so the back is better supported. So I ramble.....

In moments of pain and despair, I go out searching youtube for enlightening and inspirational videos. I found this one by Jim Bennitt, who teaches tantra-hatha yoga in chicago. I thought was a nice combination of yoga poses and a short discourse on yoga philosophy. May love and peace be the center of your life...



Namaste

The Yogi


Yoga by Jim Bennitt

Yoga Therapy - the gluteus muscle saga continues

It was back to yoga therapy yesterday evening with Nuvana as I continue my journey of pain. First we tried supported supta=padangagushthasana, dandasana on the stairs and half uttanasana on the wall. They were all very painful. We finally settled on supported chair twists that brought some immediate relief. Then two straps around a pillar, one below the waist and covering the painful area, one around the upper back for support, left (painful) leg straight and right leg bent, raised and pushing agains the pillar, hands on the pillar pushing back... 15 minutes of this action brought some badly needed relief. This position seems to bring the most relief. I went a second time with the same action. I will be practicing this all day today. Pain -- It does a body good!

Managing pain and suffering in your life

Written and adapted by "The Yogi" from various sources including B.K.S. Iyengar’s “Light on Life"

We often focus on the past or the future to avoid experiencing the present, because the present can be painful, full of hardship and difficult to endure. The pain and hardship is actually there as a teacher because life is filled with pain, hardship and struggle. In the struggle alone, there is knowledge. Only when there is hardship do we see the light – the light at the end of the tunnel. Pain and hardship is our guru that shows us this light!

As we experience pleasures with joy, we must also learn not to lose our joy when the pain and hardship comes. As we see goodness in pleasure, we should learn how to see good in pain. Learn to find comfort in discomfort. We must not try to run away from hardships but make every effort to move through and beyond it. This is the cultivation of tenacity and perseverance, the stretching and pushing of ourselves with calmness. This is the spiritual attitude towards life, the essence of Yoga. While we don’t actively seek pain or hardship, we should not run from this inevitability that is part of all growth and change. By facing pain and hardship head-on, we learn to balance and adapt to the world that is always moving and unstable and we learn how to become tolerant to the permanence of change and difference.

Endurance and patience is needed to convert an unbearable pain and hardship into a bearable one. The act of bearing is an acceptance of adversity and suffering in our life and allows us to overcome such suffering. It resolves our anxieties and helps us get on a path where our life gets better, more fulfilled and the light at the end of the tunnel appears closer and brighter. It leads to inner peace and freedom giving optimism that life can only get even better.



Namaste!

Enjoy this video...

Yoga Therapy for Pain in the Gluteal Muscle

The last three days I have been walking funny with this pain in my butt and the crushing massage from Jeremy on Wednesday made little impact. The pain simply got worse. It didnt help that I have to lug around this 40 pound back pack I carry with me to work. It includes my light weight Sony laptop (yes it recently lost to Apple's new MacBook which now claims to be the lightest in the world) but old electronic relics, papers, files, notebooks, my soon to expire passport, cell phones, batteries.. an accumulation of junk really. I am conditioned to carry weight on me. Oh! I digress again, but I think there is a connection of this bag to my chronic lower back pain. Imagine how much pain the 60 pounds of fat I carried on my body must have caused? Disgusting, self torture, but wait a minute I just had another "eureka" moment! I need to get rid of this back-pack and I need to lose another 10-20 pounds.

I visit Nuvana's house every other Friday evening for a family yoga session. This includes personal one-on-one yoga training from the goddess of iyengar yoga with my 5 and 7 year old and her 3 and 1 year old climbing all over me while I am in practice, using me as a human play structure. She just returned from India after spending 2 months in Mumbai, which included teaching yoga therapy once a week at the center run by Jawahar in Bandra (I have to visit him on my next trip) and 2 days in Pune at the Iyengar center during the recently concluded Annual Day. So with the pain becoming unbearable, I had to call her and she graciously invited me to come over this evening for yoga therapy.

Yoga Therapy?
I had a serious pain that needed immediate fixing. First came the made in india yoga strap just below my waist and around the "gluteus maximus" (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buttocks#Anatomy for more details). The belt had to be wrapped around so that it could be tightend in the anti-clockwise direction. Yes, the direction makes a huge difference in relieving the pain, so both directions were tried and I settled for the anti-clockwise direction. Then came a "half uttanasana". It hurt to push back and stretch. So we moved to the staircase in the living room, one of the props used in the yoga practice. I was sitting on the end of the stair case with my legs stretched and her feet pushing my feet, with my knees pulled in to stretch the calves. A few minutes of it brought immediate relief.

I then moved on to a badhakonasa, sitting high on 3 blankets, back supported by the wall and one step of straps around each leg to support the thighs. It was followed by strap supported Upavishtakonasana (strap aound the foot and worn around the lower waist above the thighs and then tightened in the opposite direction of each leg). We ended with a highly supported supta padangagusthasana. Within 90 minutes the pain had dissipated significantly. I could perform a highly strechted out Half Uttanasana on her wall ledge (another important prop) with much more ease and a lot less pain.

I came home more relaxed. I have a strap around my gluteus maximus ala butt, tightened in the anti-clockwise direction. I am relaxed, with less pain, lounged in a couch potatoe pose writing this blog and watching meaningless television, "Gardening with Ciscoe Live on NWCN channel". Its a video moment really, and one of these days, it will appear on this blog. I figured we get enough visual stimulation with TV/Video so reading some bad english writing for a change would be more preferable.

Life would be a lot more painful without yoga therapy and magic of Nuvana. Thanks Nuvana and welcome back!

Namaste

The Yogi

NOTE OF CAUTION: If you are a novice or new to yoga, or even if you are an experienced yogi, please do not try what I described above without proper supervision of a trained and certfied Iyengar teacher who specializes in yoga therapy. If you are in the Portland metro area visit http://sunsetyoga.com/ for more information or visit http://www.bksiyengar.com/ to find a certified Iyengar yoga teacher in your city, state or country. It will change your life!