I'm sorry if my title is not the best description, but in general I have found it hard to accurately describe my symptoms. Also, I'm not so familiar with all the technical terms, and can only describe what I feel, and in what general area those sensations are felt.

Background: For many years prior to my injury, I always noticed an imbalance between the left and right sides of my back. This I would describe as the right side of my back always feeling tense, while the left side never or rarely feeling tense at all. Most often, a day's worth of standing up would leave me with fatigue, tightness, and/or soreness throughout my right middle and upper back, especially around right shoulder blade. Area was frequently very sensitive and very "ticklish" to the touch. I believe this imbalance also played some part in the weakness and easy irritability of my left shoulder joint, most apparent when I tried to perform pushups.

Injury: The best way I can describe my injury is that while in a supine position, I was tensing and extending through my left leg when I felt a snap around my left lower glute/upper hamstring area. This was followed by a sensation of weakness/"heaviness" throughout my left leg during walking, or, during exercises, such as leg raises. I also acquired a twist to my hip where most noticeably the left side of abdominal area would twist out and towards my right. I foolishly did not seek any medical attention, believing that this injury would resolve itself. About a month later, I suffered a small injury during a side twist where my left tensor fasciae latae connects to my pelvis. There was noticeable bleeding under the skin, and an indentation in said area appeared. Many other symptoms soon followed, such as pain in my right lower back, as if something was trying to poke out my right lower back/glute area, development of knee pain in my right knee, back and hip pain, and stiffness in many areas of my left leg, development of something of a limp where I felt I was dragging my left leg, feelings that my left leg was longer than my right leg, neck discomfort, a tendency for my torso to sag to the right, and where it appeared that my front left part of my torso would be stretched up higher when doing something like raising my hands over my head than my right side (I noticed it because when raising my hands over my head, my left nipple would be slightly higher than my right nipple). There were some other symptoms, but these were the ones that stood out the most to me. Please ask if any of these requires further clarification, and I will do my best to describe.

After about 2.5 months of no improvement, and frustration with the doctors at my university's health services, and lack of other relevant doctors in my limited area (I was away from home with limited forms of transportation), I sought out chiropractic manipulations. After the first manipulation, I noticed an immediate, but not total relief after each session, but the relief was very short-lived, with the pre-manipulation severity of my symptoms returning only after a day or two. I did not perform any form of exercise during this period other than the daily walking from class to class.

Only after about 2 months worth of manipulation did I begin to notice any kind of improvement, which I saw as an increase in the time in between the return of pre-manipulation severity of symptoms. I don't believe the chiropractor ever fully picked up on all my symptoms, but I contented myself with this slow, and sometimes rollercoaster-like period of improvement, because some improvement was better than no improvement.

It was at the end of that two month period that I attempted to slowly incorporate light forms of exercise, such as the elliptical machine, stationary bike, and rowing machine. Exercise was able to bring short-term pain relief, but subsequent stiffness and associated inflammation after workouts were very, very uncomfortable.

Over the next 3 months, I felt that I experienced faster improvement, not only in that I felt I could go longer in between manipulations, but also the quality of the relief. It eventually reached a point where I reached almost pain free days. The indentation that had formed also began to noticeably heal and slowly start to close up, and felt irritated less often. There was still a noticeable twist in my hips to the right.

At the end of those 3 months is when I returned home from school. I finally felt very close to feeling back to normal. I continued to receive chiropractic manipulations, but also began to work with a physical therapist to strengthen my lower back, hamstrings, and core. I also took up swimming, which I believe has significantly helped my improvement.

An additional 2 months brings me to the present. I feel I am almost 100% better, and I have been increasing the diversity of my workouts, and been able to do things that I did before. I even feel my posture is better for it, and have eliminated some of the issues I had from before the injury. The twist in my hips is nearly gone, and my left leg is almost back in line length-wise with my right leg. Many of the stiff areas in my legs have loosened up and regained mobility. However, there are still somethings that baffle me, and make me question whether or not I'm still getting better:

I try to exercise as often as I can, (but still being cautious and observant of my body and what it feels). I notice that after a long enough period of routine exercise, my muscles begin to feel inflamed, and feel sometimes locked up, stiff, or overstretch, namely in the areas around my left shoulder joint, left side of my back, and my left inner thigh around my left glute. My left leg once again will feel slightly heavier, and I will drag my leg a little. If I lay in a supine position and do circles in the air with my left leg, during the motion, it feels like some muscle in my leg or upper thigh hits some bony part of pelvis. Something even harder to describe is the sensation sometimes where I feel in the front left side of my torso, or it might even be within the left side of my torso, where I feel something gets caught, or snagged on something. When that happens, I notice my left shoulders sag, as if something was pulling them down. I find that with enough rest, the feeling of swelling/inflammation goes away by itself, and with it, all of these discomforts, and I return pretty much back to normal. I'm just confused as to why sometimes it takes only one or two days to return back to normal, and why sometimes it takes about a week (such as I am currently experiencing).

What I would really like is any guidance or insight into what it is I might be experiencing. I think I might be on different pages than my chiro or PT, as I try to describe to them these symptoms, and they can't always provide satisfactory explanations. I just wonder if I need to take a new approach, or if these symptoms will resolve themselves at this point, or how long should I wait before I take a different approach.

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