My short leg from all-over lyme tightness, is now healing correctly-longer

Even though I stopped ABX two years ago, I'm still healing stuff that would not heal from pre ABX efforts of PT, chiro ect. My share of past sports injuries that never healed correctly due to lyme, resulted in limited range of motion, muscle imbalance tension ect. My latest healing semi-success is my shorter right leg. The muscles have relaxed, loosen up and the leg is a little longer. I walk more even.

First - leg length discrepancies fall under two conditions:

Anatomic - born that way, bone of soft tissues not the same left to right

Functional - muscle, tendon shortening due to injury or nerve control issues (with lyme in my case)

I had both in my right leg. My tibia (calf bone) is a little shorter, and my thigh with knee and hip joints were functionally shorter, with a hip twist. Aggressive muscle and tendon work has somewhat corrected the soft tissue shortness (less adhesions=longer muscles/tendons) I had for at least 12 years, maybe more. I work on it everyday- on my own.

I recently took my heel lift out of my right shoes this week, and it feels great.

It's still work in progress as physical strain could make it stay short again until it gets stronger, which could be another year, ...6 months at best I'd guess.

I also use a memory foam mat to compare foot imprints/weight distribution.

Once the body has been crooked for years, it takes time to re-program/over ride the muscle memory, much longer than I thought.

Post Edited (astroman) : 1/14/2018 9:03:35 AM (GMT-7)

Started with a 3/8" lift 10 years ago, but needed one before that. They are supposed to be half the length of the discrepancy when discovered as an adult, since muscles have settled into that position over time. My walking gate was a little funny and uneven side to side without it.

But now the lift feels weird and that foot hits the ground more with a lift in my right shoe.

The short tibia obviously cant change, but a flexible body should be able to adapt, a tight ridged body wont.

So its half better, which is huge and less strain on the hips. This has been a very slow change over this last year.

It doesn't take much in leg length differences to change your gate and torque your hips resulting in unbalanced side to side stiffness.

Post Edited (astroman) : 1/14/2018 9:06:15 AM (GMT-7)