Pain in my groin

[sopas]

I have pain in my groin when swimming too much. Particularly when I lift my knee up to my chest against resistance and I am afraid this has developed into a chronic condition.

Let me explain my case:

The problem began when I was 22. I remember exactly how it happened. I went out with my bike to do some sprints, when suddenly just as I had lifted the right pedal, my right groin started hurting me. I guess I used too much gear multiplication (50 x 13). It hurt a lot and I had to stop and go home. I just rested for the following days I forgot about it. I tried to go out with my bike again after 10 days or so, but after 30 minutes on the bike I had to stop because of the pain in the right groin. It was not as painful as the firts day, but I had not snough strength and could not apply power at all to the right pedal. So I forgot about the bike for a while.

About a year ago (now I am 28 years old), I had almost forgotten about my groin injury, and I started running without any problems. Now, I can do 5,000 meters within 20 minutes with no problem or muscle pains of any kind. But a couple of months ago, I started swimming too, and noticed that when kicking with my legs too hard in the pool, pain in the right groin resumed so hard that after swimming 500 meters, I could not even walk or even lift my right knee for the next 30 minutes or so.

The pain in the groin does not appear when I run, and neither when I sprint. It only appears at the pool when I swim. I guess different muscles are involved running and swimming right? I have not tried hard with a bike for years but I guess I will have the same pain.

I have ask some people and I think this has to do with the iliopsoas muscle in the groin.

Does anybody have the same problem as me?

[injuryupdate]

Agree that this sounds like an iliopsoas tendinitis/bursitis type injury. Fortunately won't be hip joint as this would affect you running.

Best tests to diagnose would be an ultrasound or MRI, and an ultrasound guided cortisone injection may fix the problem.

[quiggs]

Sopas,
Have you thought about seeing a physio? They can listen to your history and also look at what's going on to see if there are any biomechanical things you could change to try to get some relief. The other good thing is that most physios will have contacts with sports doctors they trust (such as those involvedin this website!!) who can then go ahead with the US, MRI or needle.

[Christy Rusk]

I have had groin problems for almost 2 years, and I am a competitive swimmer (age 15). The right groin first started causing problems after possibly overuse of the breaststroke kick at practice. I practice between 15 and 20 hrs per week as part of a USA swim team. The initial pain started after a particularly long practice session where much of it was kicking and I chose my favorite stroke which is breaststroke. After a full layoff for a few days I gradually got back to practice doing only pull (no kick) and even swam in some meets, only freestyle and backstroke with very little kicking. Whenever any pain occurred I backed off for a day or two and then resumed. After 9 months of this I was back swimming breastroke again. 4 months later at a meet I felt a pull in the left side, and I ended up repeating the whole recovery process again although the pain was less severe this time. 6 months later I started slowly resuming breaststroke kick again after seeing a top sports doctor and a physical therapist. I worked hard on physical therapy (stretching and strengthening opposing muscle groups) at home for 3 months and I felt much better and stronger and more flexible, and now the problems are starting to come back again. Xrays showed no growth plate damage previously, so I have scheduled another evaluation with the doctor. I'm getting very discouraged after so many setbacks and so few solutions. By the way I have also been dealing with exercise induced asthma but that is under pretty good control now. Has anyone else had a similar problem?

[injuryupdate]

Sounds like time to get an MRI scan to check that you don't have a torn labrum in your hip joint. As suggested by a few others on different threads in this section, a good test for you might be to get a guided injection of long-acting local anaesthetic into your hip joint then go for a swim. If this takes your pain away, the problem is inside the hip joint and given you are a high level athlete, hip arthroscopy would be indicated. In running athletes hip cartilage surgery often doesn't lead to a long-term cure, but in a swimmer I think you would get a good result.

If the guided injection and/or MRI show that this is more a tendinopathy/bursitis, then you wouldn't go with surgery, but might be able to use guided injections at this stage.

[Paulie]

Can iliopsoas tendinitis/bursitis type injury or a torn labrum include pubic pain ?

[Unregistered]

Can iliopsoas tendinitis/bursitis type injury or a torn labrum include pubic pain ?

Pubic pain is generally considered to come from the adductors or abdominal insertions, or pubic symphysis. However, osteitis pubis and hip joint pathology (e.g. labral tears) are often seen together.

[Paulie]

I thought it would be osteitis pubis, but the xrays showed no imflammation.... Still trying to find the answer ...