The fun just never stops

I had a most enlightening session with my massage therapist yesterday.

As she was working on my back, I asked her which joint a specific one was because it has been causing me a lot of grief for quite some time now.  I reached back and touched the spot in question and she told me what I had been suspecting all along.

"That's your SI joint," she said.  "How long has it been a problem?"

"Oh, quite a while," I answered.  "I just never bothered raising the issue because there was so much else going on with my hips.  But now I'm starting to become concerned that maybe we're barking up the wrong tree.  What if my pain is coming from somewhere other than my hips?"

So there followed a lesson in anatomy as to how the SI joint is involved in the movement of the hip and she suspects that the inflammation in my SI joint is secondary to the erosion of my hip joint.  She told me that there has been inflammation in that area for as long as she has treated me.

"That area is always warm to the touch," she told me, "which means there is inflammation.  But I didn't realize you were having pain."

She proceeded to treat the joint, which she had not previously done in any of our sessions.

And what a difference that one treatment has made!  The ever-present severe pain in my lower left back that I have had for months now is no longer.

She told me that she would continue treating the area, now that she knows I have the problem, and commented that it's really too bad I hadn't said something sooner because she could have been dealing with it all along.

She explained that the SI joint becomes inflamed and seizes as a result of the hip joint being unable to function properly -- yet another reason to get my hip fixed asap!

So there you have it.

I walk with difficulty because my hips don't function properly.

My SI joint seizes because I don't walk properly.

I can't sleep on my sides because my hips hurt.

I shouldn't sleep on my back because it affects my breathing.

I'm fatigued because I don't sleep well.

Fibromyalgia is worsened by lack of restful sleep and I'm having frequent flare-ups because I'm acutely fatigued.

Seems to me, if I get these hips fixed, my fibro flare-ups will be reduced because I'll be able to sleep on one side or the other.

So maybe, just maybe, by this time next year, I'll have a life back!