A Good Night’s Sleep - Thanks to Compex!

I believe I just had one of the silliest injuries ever - I hurt myself sitting. Our home phone/internet went down last week and when it came back, our wireless router was fried. As a result I’ve had to work with the laptop plugged into the ethernet cable while I’m waiting for the new router to arrive. The problem is that the ethernet cable is in my old office which is now our guest room and the only seating in that room is the old futon that we are using as a guest bed. Of course, the reason that we no longer sleep on that futon ourselves is because it is so uncomfortable now. (I admit it - we don’t want our guests to be too comfortable and stay too long!) As a result, after one day of sitting on the futon, I had re-tweaked my lower back/right piriformis and completely tightened both psoas/hip flexors. I had to work late to meet a deadline and didn’t realize this until I got up at midnight to go to bed and found that I was in so much pain that I couldn’t sleep.

After laying in bed for 2 hours, trying every possible position to get comfortable and lessen the pain, I got up and decided to try the Compex Sport Elite on my glutes and see if it relieved the pain in my piriformis enough so that I could fall asleep. 24 minutes later, I felt so much better that I was able to get back in bed, get comfortable, and fall asleep for 4 hours (had to get up and get to work).

The next day, I was still sore and tight to the point of limping so I spent a lot of time stretching. By bedtime, I was sore but able to lay down without the pain keeping me awake. However, by about 2 in the morning I had stiffened to the point where the pain came back and woke me up. This time, I didn’t even hesitate. I got right out of bed and went right to my Compex. This time I set 1 of the small pads right on the most painful spot on my lower back/glute with 3 others in a triangle around that one. Then I set two of the larger pads, one at just below and one at just above where I could feel the tightness of my psoas. I laid down as comfortably as I could and turned on the Active Recovery program and set the intensity as high as I could manage. 24 minutes later, I was back in bed with no pain at all on my right side. My back didn’t hurt at all and my right hip flexor was completely relaxed. In fact, my only question was whether to stay up long enough to do the same on the left hip flexor (the left side of my back doesn’t hurt) or go straight back to sleep. In the end, I just fell back to sleep and was able to stay asleep until the cats woke me for food (who needs an alarm when you have cats?).

I’ve been avoiding sitting on that futon - we just moved an old desk chair into the guest room - but I’m thrilled that I’ve managed to get a good night’s sleep thanks to Compex. I’m still stretching as much as I can but if I’m sore again tonight, I know that I’m going to go straight to my Compex!

p.s. Written while running the Endurance program on my quads!!