Chase your pain, let others help you heal

Sunday morning I started to have pain in my knee and by night time it was keeping me awake. Pain is scary for everyone but being an instructor, I have no paid sick days and my body’s health is key to my work. So not only was my knee hurting, I was worried if I could work this week. Lucky for me I am surrounded by people with a wealth of knowledge on the body. I had to teach a class Monday morning so I got it together, hoping to get a few minutes with Jeff. Jeff is the owner at Tandava and specializes in yoga therapy. The pain was strong and I couldn’t bend my knee. Jeff took a look at it and massaged my quadriceps, explaining how a tight quad can pull on the knee and overtime cause problems, we also discussed looking at my practice closely for where I might be causing too much stress on the knee… I really didn’t think it could be that, I’m so careful… I immediately made an appointment with my physio therapist, knowing I had to get this under control. Well Tuesday morning I woke up and the pain was hardly noticeable, I almost cancelled my appointment, physio isn’t cheap. I went anyways since I didn’t want to cancel the day of and am I grateful that I did, life lesson, invest in what is important, health is at the top.

I saw Danielle at Wave physio, thinking maybe she would be able to tell me what had cause it. She did just that, Patellofemoral pain syndrome, usually seen in young female athletes with high impact training such as dancers or runners. Not falling into that category Daniel was also confused at the sudden on set, yet sure of her diagnosis. She did ultrasound and traditional acupuncture to aid in healing.

During treatment I realized what I had been doing to cause this. I have been teaching float backs in my class, demonstrating with the same side and had been teaching a lot last week. So there was my answer; stop only doing one side repeatedly and as Jeff said, check my alignment.

The thing is if I hadn’t gone to see Daniel, I would have rested and the pain would have went away but come back as soon as I started to play with float backs. It would have been a little game of on and off as I would never really have understood the cause.

I understand looking after ourselves can seem costly but the longer we go without dealing with our pain, the more convoluted it becomes. If I had waited a few weeks until it was back maybe the connection wouldn’t have been so clear, or maybe there would be pain transfer and I would have a bunch of symptoms. As my friend Tamara says, “If you listen to the body whisper you, wont have to hear it scream”, and as my teacher Nicki Doane says “pain is disease that has not yet manifested, chase your pain”.

Take care of your pain, physical, mental, emotional, it may dissipate with rest but you’ll have to address it at some point. Now is the time.

~with love Chelsea Ray