Dealing with injuries - Storytime

Hello there!

How are you today? I went to the physio on the morning and I needed to stay at home in order to rest from the massage and recover from a small injury I have on my right calf. Nothing too serious but my physio recommended me not to push it too much if I’m having exams right after my holidays. I’ll actually go back on Tuesday to do a final session right before I leave.

One of the best treatments for me it's accupuncture

I get a session everytime I come back home

Today I’m coming to talk about injuries I’ve had and how did I treat them. I think it’s important to talk also about the problems a dancer’s body may encounter and especially now that I’m such a young, aspiring dancer it’s fundamental for me to get to know myself and how to prevent some injuries.

I’ll talk about the two major injuries I’ve had and that are still with me: my lower back and my knees.

Let’s start with the lower back. I’ve always been a quite flexible child regarding my back. It never felt too difficult to do a cambré or a bridge position so I always forced it. I also had a tendency to stay sitting on my lower back and curving my upper body. This is the posture I’ve always felt comfortable in. Once I got into ballet a lot of posture issues needed to be fixed and I still struggle with the opening of my shoulders and upper body, especially when I get tired.

I started having actual deep pain when I was around 14 and after a lot of misdiagnosed common lower back pains I finally got an m-ray done and it showed that I had a protrusion and a disc slip and that was the origin of my constant soreness and loss of mobility. I had some recovery time which included not only massage or ultrasound treatments but also some exercises and of course it’s something you can never cure but it really helps you build up some strength and be more aware of what’s happening to your body.

This one is the zone where I have the protrusion and the disc slip 

(L4-L5 protrusion and L5-S1 disc slip)

But that was just a small episode compared to what was about to come. About a year later I remember that we were rehearsing in conservatoire a neo-classical piece for the school performances at the end of the year. This piece had a pirouette that ended on a developpé a la seconde. It wasn’t too hard and I never struggled but one day I did it and I stayed on balance pretty well. Once I let my leg go down, I slipped on the floor and I fell down completely like a hard wood piece making me impact the floor on my lower back first and then on my head.

You can imagine how scandalous the class became and I remember that my teacher was really worried that I was a bit dizzy and I might’ve fainted. Luckily I didn’t and I said I was completely fine and that it was a normal fall, nothing too bad.

Next morning I woke up not being able to move too much but I never thought it was something i really needed to worry about. I felt my neck extremely tight, like when you have a crick, so I put a scarf around it to keep it warm but the pain and stiffness was all over my spine. I went to class anyway and when I tried to start the barre I felt how I was getting more and more stiff to a point where I couldn’t move at all and I felt very sharp pains all over my spine. They send me to the physio of my school and when he saw me he pulled one of those extremely worried faces you never want to encounter.

This one is the piece I was rehearsing when I fell

He said to me that it was worthless to try and make a massage to it because he thought something with the actual bone structure happened so he send me to the hospital to get it checked. Once I arrived to the hospital, they made me and x-ray and in less than 20 minutes I had my result. They told me that the x-ray showed that my neck had completely retracted and my spine was in shock which caused my full back muscles to get stiff as rocks and disallowed me to move. In fact, the doctor got very angry at me because he said that when he saw the x-ray the first thing that came to his mind is if I had a small car accident or so because it’s a common injury in car accidents. Result? I had to wear a bolster for a full week but that week was the last one right before our performances and I wasn’t allowing myself to miss them.

Wasn't as happy as this lady though... 

But this one was the kind of medical collar I was wearing.

I did the worst thing I had to do that it was dancing on those performances after extremely intense physio sessions and although I was still in pain, I managed to dance and I remember that year as one of the best ones.

This decision brought me good things but also really bad ones. I believe that some of my neck soreness and lack of mobility come from this episode and although it’s nothing that really stops me from dancing I know it’s something I could’ve avoid. I’ve always been really passionate and committed to dancing but with the time I’ve learned (and I still have to) that stopping sometimes is the best cure any dancer can have. Rushing things can lead to chronic pain and constant treatments which go against nature and I also believe that our bodies are the best doctors sometimes, so we should really listen to them.

Another image of the performance we had after the back injury.

Now moving into my knees. This ones are a different story.

In my family there’s a good history of bone and cartilage issues on my dad’s side. My grandma has currently three prosthesis (two hips and one knee) and my dad broke his meniscus and also got an operation done. The cartilage of this side of the family tends to degrade quicker than other people and unfortunately I inherited this condition.

I must clarify: this is nothing that stops me from dancing at all but it’s something that when I get older it could be very painful if I don’t treat it now and it allows me to elongate my career at least five more years than if I didn’t prevent at all.

My main problem is located in the patella area

What do I do? Well, after a couple of scans my traumatologist (that also treated my dad) recommended me to get hyaluronic acid injections. These are also used in cosmetics as hyaluronic acid is one of the major components of the synovial fluid, the one that’s into the capsules of each joint in our bodies. This means that whenever someone is lacking cartilage due to a degeneration of this one, hyaluronic acid will refill the capsule and give the joint some lubricant to make it move smoothly without damaging the bones.

I should repeat this injections every 12 to 14 months but the last one I got was a big dose that overlapped a bit with the second last one I got and this year I’ve been able to get through without them. I know that most probably in summer I’ll have to get them because during this last months is when we push our bodies the most and it’s natural to increase the charge in our joints.

When I get this injections I must stop for at least a week as the liquid must find its place on the body. I’m not going to lie, they’re painful and the last ones were the worst ones. I remember myself on Christmas holidays not being able to get out of the house and needing help to walk, go to the bathroom and even sit down because my legs wouldn’t respond properly and I would feel an extreme pressure in my knee caps that would keep me awake during the full night and taking several noninflammatory medicines to alleviate the pain. But the result is beyond wonderful.

I can go back to dancing as soon as I’m able to walk properly and it feels like having pillows on your joints: you work smoothly to your own limit while being able to work for new goals without having any inconvenience.

And those are my two big stories with injuries! Of course, like every other dancer, I’ve had other small things, but these are the two injuries that until now they've taught me how to take care of myself and have made me aware of how I work everyday.

I hope that you enjoyed this post and if you’re ever interested in knowing more about recovery exercises or any easy treatment for injuries let me know in the comments down below!

I’ll see you tomorrow!

Love,

Muriel