Please find below an overview of my problem. I greatly appreciate any help/advice.
Issue: Groin Strain (?) since November 8, 2018.
Chron:
Background: Trained since October 2017 with one of our coaches. Appendectomy March 2018. Slowly trained back to my goal strength levels.
Incident 1: November 8, 2018, feel groin sharp pain on 3rd of 4th rep of pulling 295 (lower right abdomen and below). Kept training and didn’t feel better. Stopped after it felt slightly worse November 10. Shut down after it did not get better. Sensation felt like I was getting the air taken out of my stomach when I bent over. Inflammed feeling in groin area. No significant issues when squatting. Felt some pain when benching, and definitely felt it on deadlifts. I felt small pains here and there with groin before, but nothing as painful or as acute.
Medical Checkups: Saw urgent care doctor mid-November to screen for inguinal hernia. Negative. Ultrasound early-December for same. Negative.
Resumed training: Resumed training with nearly-regular frequency, with a rehab protocol from one of the coaches and much lighter weights. Felt better. Some small pains here and there, nothing serious until January 6/7.
Recurrence (non-acute): January 6/7 - feel groin/lower ab tightness when twisting. January 8 - starting feeling some pain on warm-up sets for squats and shut it down. Decided to get medical/PT advice and possibly see sports medicine to figure out a long-term solution (even if that includes surgery).
Who have you been working with (I noticed you mentioned coach a few times)?
The good news - you’ve had an inguinal hernia ruled out (although even if it were this - it’s not the end of the world but this is a different discussion).
Without consulting with you it’s difficult to state but this sounds like a sports hernia (basically non-discriminate symptoms in the area of the groin). I typically view a sports hernia similarly to non-specific low back pain. We can’t necessarily put our finger on a biological tissue issue (rarely can we in the cases of persistent pain) but overall prognosis is good for these scenarios if we can reconceptualize the meaning of pain while dosing in tolerable movements to the area. The onset of this certainly can be an acute strain that is consistently being inappropriately loaded and re-sensitizing yourself.
I’d recommend a consult with us so we can guide the path. So far nothing you’ve stated even hints towards surgery and it’s likely best to not set those expectations as acceptable at this time.
Thank you for your response, Michael. I just submitted an injury & rehab consultation questionnaire. That is interesting that this may be similar to non-specific low back pain.
I actually felt some groin pain after doing 2 counts down, pause, bench, which seems very strange.
Thanks again, looking forward to hearing further on the consultation.