Am I just dealing with pain, or the possibility of making this injury worse?

did you heat, ice anything?

With any injury you always risk re-injury.
Three weeks ago, I pulled my groin playing football and tried to play the following week after being able to run and cut with little pain and ended up re-injuring myself. If you play tonight, Be Cautious. If the pain gets worse, take yourself out of the game. You don’t want to risk a tear.

I’ve never pulled a hamstring that I can remember but had a long lasting groin pull that I kept re-injuring for what seemed like forever. Also had a strained calf that wouldn’t heal until I stayed off of it for a couple of weeks.

My experience is that it won’t necessarily get worse than it was originally, but it just doesn’t heal and you keep tweaking it. If you can rest it initially and actually get all the way back, that seems like the quickest solution.

From personal experience:

Potential for re-injury is very high and will stay with you for a while—maybe years.

How sure are you that you didn’t tear it? I thought I strained mine in 2005 and since there is no medical treatment per se other than RICE did not go to the doctor right away.

When it was still impossible to sit for long periods of time (making work a non-starter) and walking, stair climbing, etc. were adventures in potential agony if I stepped the least bit wrong, I went to the doc after two weeks.

I found out I had a tear and some ligament damage.

If that was the case for you—even a small tear, I think you could worsen the injury by playing this soon. Even NFL players do not play with hamstring injuries right away!

Good luck!

I’d say you’re quite likely to make it worse. 2 1/2 weeks is a long time. It sounds like more than a strain to me – as Marina suggested, could be a tear. I would sit this one out.

I went to WebMD.com to see what their advice was, and when I was just putting in your symptoms, a new window popped up saying, “If you are experiencing leg pain associated with a recent injury or trauma, seek medical attention if you have not already done so” before I even finished the quiz.

My advice is to stay out of the game tonight, go to http://symptoms.webmd.com/symptomchecker and check it out for yourself, and think about going to the doctor.

Best of luck!

My thanks to each of you. I’m thinking it’s either pulled or strained, and I’m really hoping it’s not a tear. I think I’m NOT going to try it out tonight, give it some more time, and test in a few days or another week. That’s what my intuition has been indicating, but my desire to play was starting to get antsy. Thank you! And I’m still open to further ideas and opinions.

Good Call Bro. Hope you heal up soon.

@Trustinglife I really hope it improves for you. M

Thanks Marina, it’s been frustrating. Actually, I’m reconsidering… I think I’m going to go out tonight and test it with low expectations and low speed, and knowing there’s a realistic chance I’ll reaggravate it. I’m going stir crazy getting no exercise for almost three weeks.

I assume my three lurves were for my choice not to go tonight, so it feels funny to change my mind and let you know. But that’s the case right now. Thanks for your responses and care. I’ll go easy on it.

@Trustinglife Believe me I can relate. It was the better part of six weeks before i got a large part of my normal life back. I was going completely crazy. I am not a good patient or rester.

Go for it with care and remember to ice after.

I think the lurve was also because people care about you so don’t feel bad.

Take care TL…good luck.

So I’m home. I was really, really pleased with how my hamstring responded. I wasn’t sure I’d play in the game much at all, but I played as much as I wanted, and was able to run about 80% of my fast speed. So I’m very pleased. Just iced, and I’m happy! Thanks for sharing your experiences and advice, y’all!