Sometimes our early success in treating someone’s issue makes us get stuck in a direction of treatment. I had been helping a patient with her hip pain. Initial evaluation had found some issues with her hip: rotated pelvis, irritable hip joint, weakness of hip muscles. We worked on it and after the first visit her pain was down by half, and she went from limping to walking pretty well.

We both felt like we were on the right track and that she would soon be pain free. Unfortunately that didn’t happen! Four weeks later, her pain remained around the same half-way level. It would ease after her session, but it would inevitably come back in the same or slightly different spot. We worked on them all: piriformis, obturator, gluteus muscles. All of which brought temporary relief.

Usually, if treatment benefit is temporary, or if pain location moves around, I suspect that I’m chasing the tail or shadow of the real issue. But now that her hip pain and mobility was better, we can conduct a more thorough testing.

We noticed that when she walked, her spine was extremely rigid and straight. When she bend forward and reached for her toes, all the motion came from her hips, none from her spine. We started working on improving the suppleness of her spine. She immediately felt better, able to walk and bend without irritating her hip. And we didn’t even touch her hip that day. Now that her spine moved a bit, her hip stopped compensating and hurting.

We were excited for breaking the plateau. We’ve found her true road to recovery. Sometimes we can get fixated based on past success. But it’s important to be thorough, be open-minded, and be ready to re-chart your path when you’re stuck.