2008
Physical symptom: clenched hip joint muscles
Filed Under (Physical/Body, Symptoms) by Karin on 05-07-2008
Tagged Under : distracted, muscle, pain, physical, ptsd, relaxation, spasm, symptom
A symptom which I have assigned to PTSD (as PTSD is the main mental operative in my life) that has developed in the last 15 months, is clenched joint muscles.
Not skeletal muscles, as that would be like back spasms? I don’t have back spasms.
But my left hip, the internal muscles which keep the femur pulled up into the pelvis, squeeze tight. Not the external buttock muscles. The internal ones. The result is that the femur is pushed up into the cartilage and joint constantly, and the hip joint (in my pelvis) becomes really sore. Not so much sore to walk on, but it hurts particularly bad to lay on.
Although I’ll describe it to my family that “my hip is spasming up again,” it’s not really a spasm, because spasms are involuntary. This is voluntary, but controlled subconsciously; It’s not like I choose to do it, like picking my nose! It just happens.
But “spasm” closely describes the tension and tightness of the muscles that are clenched up. It closely describes the fact I am not trying to tense up my hip. And after 20 or 30 minutes, the whole joint just aches.
I try to be aware of it, and consciously relax the whole hip joint. However I’ll catch it and do this relaxation exercise easily 30+ times an hour.. sometimes several times a minute. It’s a constant battle with this subconscious thing that keeps tightening the muscles up. And I do the whole awareness-relaxation thing because if I don’t, if I left the joint stay spasmed up, it is unbelievably sore for days. At its worst, I haven’t been able to even sit on the hip. Give that whirl in real life … NOT!
So I am perpetually distracted by checking whether my hip is tightened up, then stopping whatever I’m working on and focusing on forcing the muscles and whole joint to relax. Then I go back to whatever I was thinking about.
The net result is, I am constantly distracted, and inefficient, and I often forget what I was doing, or what I was thinking about. This makes even checking or acting on emails impossible at times… I can’t follow a thought process through. It is supremely annoying, and leaves me feeling incapable.
