Hi,
my father has an issue with his right glute/hamstring muscle. Ten days ago he had some back pain and in order to relax his back he treated himself with his infrared lamp. Right after this treatment his pain increased to the degree that he cannot walk for more than about 50-80 meters. He even has trouble sleeping at night due to the pain. He went to his Orthopedic surgery last Thursday and he told my father that he sparked an inflammation of his gluteal muscles with the infrared light, gave him a cortisol shot and told him to come back in three weeks for another shot if the pain didn’t go away. Neither OTC NSAIDS nor the cortisol mitigated my father’s pain significantly.
My question: Is an inflammation of the gluteal muscles actually a thing? And if so, can it really be triggered by infrared light and be reliably diagnosed without any further imaging? How should he proceed when he cannot even walk more than 50 meters? Is rest, as the doctor told him, really the best option?
Background info: My father is 64 years old, very active in the sense that he walks and rides his bike a lot, does (machine based) resistance training 2-3 times a week and plays tennis when his knees allow for it. He had knee surgery a couple of years ago due to lack of cartilage but stayed active ever since. As he cannot walk he is completely desperate at the moment.
Thanks a lot