The most recent Rheumatologist I saw said that I do not have an autoimmune disease. For more details about this please read this post. I have been wondering if this means I have cured myself, or at least made a terrible disease much less worse and essentially nonexistent. But…I still have all the symptoms that I have always had. So I have concluded that I have NOT cured my autoimmune disease, or whatever it is that is wrong with me. I likely have made it better by adapting a healthier lifestyle for the past 21 years (this has been agreed upon by a doctor). While I may not have a label anymore and I no longer have to stress about a potentially terrible disease (CREST Syndrome [a form of Scleroderma]), I do think it is my responsibility now to make my physical ailments better. And I do have quite a few…

1. Hip Pain
2. Heartburn, bloating
3. Frequent headaches and migraines
4. Left wrist pain
5. Fatigue
6. Right knee pain

Writing this out in detail will help me track where I was (aka am now), verses where I will be in the future. I’m sharing my journey to help others along the way. I’m going into detail about each of these in posts coming up so to begin, here’s the scoop on my hip pain. 

My left hip started hurting back in 2008. I have no memory of falling or any injury to contribute to this. I was 21 years old and I was pretty physically active. The pain would come and go and I ignored it and assumed it would just go away. Also when I complained about the pain to people around me, I felt like they dismissed it. Which back then, made ME dismiss it. I continued to do cardio exercise a lot despite the pain for years, and also had very physical jobs at busy bars and restaurants. I never really slowed down and listened to the pain, I was just “go go go” most of the time. 

Then, in 2011 I ran a 5k (after a heavy night of drinking [not sure if that contributes anything]) and my hip hurt pretty badly during it (and I was hungover). After that 5k my hip hurt so bad that I knew it was serious. I was on a softball team and I absolutely could not continue to play. I had previously complained of hip pain to my doctor but he never found anything and didn’t seem to take it that seriously.  I began physical therapy and did that for many years. PT has always helped somewhat but not that much. I eventually had an MRI and found that the cartilage was torn in my hip so I had arthroscopic hip surgery. After this surgery and with tons more PT my hip didn’t hurt as bad, yay! BUT I still couldn’t run or play sports. I absolutely loved running and used to use it as therapy. I was never a daily runner, but it was really great for me and for my physical and mental health. So fast forward to today, I have hip pain every day. I still can’t run. My physical activity is limited to what doesn’t hurt my hip. BUT I have worked on my mindset tremendously and I focus on being grateful for what I CAN do. I workout often and have found a lot of low impact workout videos on YouTube that have been great for me. If you want a link to some of my favorites, let me know in the comments and I’ll share them 🙂