The last update I shared on my hip/hamstring saga was that I have scheduling an assessment with my orthopedic doctor and guessed I would be sent to PT. 

That's basically what happened. Both my doc and the PT don't seem to think there's major tissue or ligament damage or anything like that, so that's a positive. 

At my first PT appointment, I was prescribed 30 minutes of walking per day and one exercise with a resistance band.

After my week at the beach with my family earlier this summer, my hamstring seemed to be moving in the right direction, and I was feeling cautiously optimistic. 

So my PT let me add in short running intervals to my walks, and we started gradually introducing more strength and balance exercises. 

After watching me do a variety of movement patterns, my PT thinks my issues are stemming from stabilization challenges. Basically that means I've got really loose/flexible joints, and my muscles, ligaments and tendons needs to work a lot harder to keep me stable so I don't topple over. 

She suspects that over time my stabilizing muscles got weaker and that other muscles jumped in to overcompensate since my body didn't want to fall over regularly. 

It's an interesting diagnosis because I've always thought I had decent balance, and I do if I just need to stand on one leg in a stable position for a while. If I have to add in any sort of movement, I topple over quickly. 

Single leg deadlifts -- just with body weight -- require insane amounts of concentration to not fall over. I wobble a ton from side to side and can feel every little muscle in my legs gripping hard. 

So that's what we're working a lot on. My hip seems to be responding well. I really haven't noticed much pain in my hip other than tiny little flare ups here and here. 

My hamstring has been more sore since we've started going down this path. My PT says that's normal, but it's still frustrating because I just want to be able to run again without pain. She says the most important thing right now is managing any pain. So I'm allowed to continue with my 1-2 minute run intervals during my walks as long as the pain stays below a 5 out of 10, and it doesn't change my running form. 

The other key thing is that the pain isn't allowed to linger into the next day. If it does, I need to cut back. So I'm trying to monitor for those things.

I have PT appointments scheduled through the end of the month, and then we'll assess where I am. 

So that's the update. I guess we're making progress, but it just feels really slow.