A Bump in the Road

Posted by Sarah Herman | March 1, 2010 | 1 Comment

I’ve dealt with injuries before; a rolled or twisted ankle seems to be my specialty. This time, stress got the best of me, resulting in one of the oddest injuries I’ve ever had…

For those of you going through college/ grad school, I understand the mass amounts of work you have to do and how it weighs on you through the semester. And I understand how precious sleep becomes. I admit, I’ve been sleeping like a baby every night ever since I started running, but wow, have I been waking up with terrible headaches.

I figured out I had been clenching my teeth while I was sleeping due to the amount of stress I had been experiencing. While running is a great stress reliever, sometimes we can’t help but have too much stress. This is where my injury comes in. I haven’t run since Monday, and it’s killing me. Why? Because for about two weeks now I have been clenching my teeth so hard in my sleep (hence, the headaches) that it’s tensed my neck muscles up so tight, giving me one heck of a stiff neck. The first day I woke up with my stiff neck, I couldn’t believe the amount of pain I was in, and it only worsened throughout the day. It’s hard to be in a classroom, trying to pay attention to a room full of talkative 11th graders without looking every-which-way! I tried rolling my head around, but I was met with terrible pangs in my neck and head. I figured my tension tamer tea would help, but it only relaxed me for a bit. Since I can’t move my head around too much, I have been unable to run (I would rather heal than risk hurting myself even more).

To all of you expert runners out there, what do you recommend for this odd “injury”? And as I did last time, I want to open the response board up to all of you to share some of the odd injuries (or any injuries) you have experienced while running, and let us all know what you did to heal!

Happy Running!

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Category: Sarah's Couch to 5K Journey  Tags:

Comments

One Response to “A Bump in the Road”

  1. Ron
    March 1st, 2010 @ 1:51 pm

    Sarah

    You are probably developing TMJ. While there are specialists who treat this, you may be able to get an inexpensive OTC mouthguard to sleep with at night to help with this.

    For the immediate pain and soreness relief – you can try ibuprofen; warm moist heat bag on the back of your neck to help relax it; hot showers or whirlpool; self massage; or an appt with a massage therapist. A nice glass of wine before bed my help, too.

    If these simpler remedies don’t work, see your doctor. He may recommend muscle relaxers and physical therapy.

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