Ninja in doctor costume by Chris Hastings.

I’ve been telling friends that after my marathon debut just this month, I got this slight discomfort in my butt area. My curiosity had me researched about the pain and it looks like Ischial Bursitis. I thought it would disappear but it didn’t. I felt a sharp pain when I started my leg-speed training last Saturday and I only lasted for 10 minutes because of the pain. Since then, I haven’t done any running at all and I was worried more about gaining weight. So yesterday I decided to visit our company clinic in Makati.

Upon the suggestion of our HR, I need to go first to our company’s HMO satellite branch in Makati and from there, they will give me a referral to an Ortho (which is ALWAYS an affiliated member). If you’re an (unlucky) regular employee here in the Philippines, you just can’t go to any doctor of your choice. That’s just how it goes. And so a surgeon interviewed me about my pain. I told him about the pain in my butt and slight pain at the back of my left knee. Immediately, he told me to proceed to the next room to get an x-ray of my left knee and pelvis area. Ten minutes later, I got the x-ray result and showed it back to the surgeon. He glanced at the x-ray result of my left knee and glanced even longer at the result of my x-ray in my pelvis and told me that he saw nothing wrong with the result. However, he pointed out that those black spots in the x-ray result of my pelvis are “air nodules” and are quite painful. His theory was that those air nodules might be the source of my pain and I need to get rid of it by drinking more than 8 glasses of water and eating more fiber. I was a bit relieved with his answer, knowing that I only take like 3 glasses of water a day, 2 cups of coffee and a soda on daily basis. Probably this is the reason why I normally fart 10-15 times a day, more so during race-I guess I’m the number one source of methane release every time I join a race. His comment about the pain in my left knee is less satisfactory; he just suggested me to buy a customized insole to fix it and mentioned about a store in Hongkong where he saw one. I have to inform him that Runnr Store sells it and informed him where to find it. The whole discussion made me realized that I should be talking to an Ortho who is a runner too and not just a regular doctor.

Tomorrow I’ll get the “official x-ray result” including the x-ray man’s findings. The surgeon told me I needed not to give him the official result as my problem is not really that huge. I shall post the result on Thursday of the x-ray result and hopefully, any runner-doctors here can provide additional info.

And yes, I’ll  have a second opinion on Saturday!