Hi there! I’m Stephanie Buckley. I am a 33-year-old warrior woman, healer, empath, optimist, change maker, and alternative pain management coach. This blog is an outlet to share my voice and ideas when it comes to managing pain. My hope is that I can inspire others with pain to take back their power and live the life of their dreams.
Why listen to me? I figure the best way to understand my background is to share my own personal journey with pain. To share how I went from working as a physiotherapist to creating my own business as an alternative pain management coach. To share how I went from a sedentary lifestyle due to pain and depression to returning to soccer after 10+years. My intent is this will show you I’m no different than anybody else. Along with documenting my own journey. My dream is that by sharing my experience and what I’ve learned about healing will help others. My hope is it will inspire you that you can make things better; You can change your pain. So where to start? Let’s go back to the beginning.
Growing up I lived on a soccer field. My siblings and I basically lived outside on a soccer field during the summers and in an indoor soccer facility during the winters. I started playing when I was 7yrs old and played into my early twenties. Why do I love this game?(How long have you got? Smiley face). I love how soccer is a team sport and the strategy of how you have to work together to score. It’s a great way to exercise your whole body. I think it’s amazing that even professional soccer players can play 90 minutes and still not have a winner. How crazy is that?! Now I know a common complaint of non-soccer fans is that it’s boring to watch. The way I can relate to this statementI is I find baseball boring to watch (sorry baseball fans). However, having said that I am still fascinated by what baseball players are able to do. How are they able to hit this small ball with a bat that’s going insanely fast?! The reason I share this is as you read my story is I encourage you to keep in mind an activity you love and how pain could affect your ability to do that activity or maybe pain has already gotten in the way of doing something you love.
It was playing the beautiful game (soccer/football) that I experienced my first injury. To this day I still remember when it happened. I can see it so clearly in my mind. I was in high school and had indoor soccer practice in a school gym. It was the end of the practice and we were scrimmaging (practice game) and all of a sudden I had felt this sharp pain run across the front of my left thigh. I’d never experienced anything like it before. All of a sudden I now couldn’t run because of the pain. I was so confused because there wasn’t a clear incident that could’ve caused it. Like getting hit in the knee or thigh or colliding with someone and falling. I had another practice the very next day. We were working on crosses. For those not familiar with soccer, this is when you kick a ball from one side of the field in front of the net for your team to try to score. The first time I tried this drill during the practice I had excruciating pain in my left thigh. So much so I was holding back tears. I remember getting in the car with my dad after practice and crying because it hurt so bad. I didn’t know what to do or why it hurt in the first place. Where do you go when you have health concerns? The doctor. So I went and saw my family physician and was referred to physiotherapy.
At this point in my life I had never heard of physiotherapy. I had no idea what a physiotherapist did. At my first physiotherapy appointment I was fascinated by what they did and how they could make a diagnosis. At this appointment I was diagnosed with a left hip flexor strain. I was so inspired by this appointment that when I got home I asked my mom what I needed to do to become a physiotherapist. Little did I know this planted a seed that would grow later on in my life.
I diligently worked on my home exercise program created by my physiotherapist and religiously attended my appointments. After 6 weeks of rehabilitation I was back on that soccer field without any issues! Oh ya! Woohoo physiotherapy!
It wouldn’t be until the end of grade 12 that I would get my first experience with low back pain. I started to get low back pain while I was running. I was officially on the low back pain train. So, what did I do? I went to physiotherapy! It had helped me so much the first time it was obvious this is who I would seek for help for the next time around. I worked with a physiotherapist and my back improved. However, I have had to deal with back pain ever since. I was still able to exercise and play soccer but it certainly limited me. I am now 32 yrs old and reflecting on this experience I think, ‘how crazy is it that I’ve had to deal with back pain since I was 17-18yrs old?’ It’s ridiculous when you really think about it.
Getting into my early 20s is when things began to significantly decline. Once again, I got sharp hip/thigh pain that felt similar to when I injured my hip when I was in high school. I don’t recall the exact incident that caused this pain, likely soccer. I returned to physiotherapy and received the same diagnosis I did back in high school, same hip and everything. I was back to attending physiotherapy regularly and working on my home exercise program. I had gotten to the point where I was on a return to running program and was very close to being able to go back to playing soccer. It was smooth sailing. However, it was too good to be true. I was running on a treadmill doing my return to run program when all of sudden I had sharp, excruciating pain along the front of my left thigh again. It made no sense! What the heck was going on?! I’d been working on this running program for weeks and wasn’t doing anything different. Why did my pain feel like I was back at the beginning?!!
From a soft tissue standpoint, I shouldn’t have run into this situation. This led me to being referred to a sports orthopaedic specialist with the help of my physiotherapist. I ended up getting an MRI and the report came back saying I had a hip labral tear. This is the tissue that lines the socket of the hip joint and extends it to make it deeper for the head of the femur (thigh bone). I had 2 choices, one to go for surgery or two to continue the conservative route with physiotherapy. I opted to continue with physiotherapy.
During this time, I was attending physical therapy school. Yes, that seed planted in high school bloomed into me going to physical therapy school. I was making my dream come true. Like many university students it was challenging to balance exercise and self-care while keeping up with my studies. For the next 2 years I continued to work with my physiotherapist and developed a home exercise program. However, the consistency ebbed and flowed depending on how busy school was. I didn’t play any soccer over those 2 years of school.
When I graduated from physical therapy school, I moved away from home for the first time to start my physiotherapy career. Needless to say, this was stressful and overwhelming. During my first year of working as a physiotherapist I found it difficult to maintain an exercise routine. Work turned into my life. Go to work, come home, eat, sleep, repeat with weekends being time to recharge. I would have no energy other than being able to watch Netflix over the weekends. Understandably, my physical health began to decline and my hip and back pain gradually increased. The pain finally reached a point that I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I followed-up with my family physician and I was referred to a hip orthopaedic specialist. I was very impressed with this specialist. This specialist had a clinic devoted to treating young adults with hip pain. The assessment was thorough. I had specialised x-rays, was assessed by a physiotherapist, and the orthopaedic specialist all at the same location. Based on my assessment, I was diagnosed with hip impingement: Depending on the angle that the head of the femur goes into the hip socket (on the pelvis), it can lead to parts of the hip joint being “pinched” or in other words you get wear and tear of the labrum in that area. This is why I had a labral tear. Once again I was given 2 options, one go for surgery and they reconstruct the hip or don’t go for surgery. The surgery is very extensive and there is no guarantee it will change anything. I chose to not proceed with surgery. The positives that came from this appointment were I now knew what was going on with my hip. I do believe knowledge is power. Also, I was able to connect with the physiotherapist from my appointment that specialises in hip impingement. This gave me new found hope.
My physiotherapy rehabilitation resumed. I started to see gains I hadn’t seen in years and my pain decreased. My physiotherapist believed I could get back to playing soccer. After a lot of time and hardwork I was given the clear to try soccer. I cannot tell you how happy I was. When the time came for my first soccer game I was excited and terrified AF but the excitement outweighed the fear. In fact, I was all geared up and ready to go well before I had to leave for the soccer game. I couldn’t have asked for a better first experience for returning to soccer. I had no hip pain. Let me say that again. I had NO hip pain! I even scored a goal! First game back and I scored. This moment was even more special because I was playing on a co-ed team with my dad and siblings and my dad was the one who passed the ball to me for me to score. In other words he assisted the goal. This was an amazing moment in my life! It had been years since I had stepped on a soccer field and here I was back playing. Not just playing, thriving! I mean I scored a goal for goodness-sake!
Unfortunately, this joy would be short-lived. The following week during my soccer training, when I went to sprint I felt a tearing pain along the front of my left thigh. Yes, once again it felt like the same pain I got when I was a teenager. What the actual f**k?!!!! How could this happen? I did everything right? I saw the experts. I put in the time and hard work and played my first soccer game in years. This was so discouraging. I honestly didn’t know what to do. I then became so afraid of movement and exercise. My activity level gradually declined. I didn’t play another soccer game that season.
Little did I know at the time, while dealing with my pain my mental health was declining. It didn’t become clear to me until my late twenties.I began to struggle in life with things that typically weren’t a problem. I had less energy and was fatigued more often. In the morning I would just want to cry. Work became extremely difficult and I was easily overwhelmed. Recognizing I was struggling I booked some vacation time to go spend time with my family. Any time I needed to recharge going back home is what would do the trick. Except for this time, it didn’t. After my time off, I woke up Monday morning crying with the thought of work being too much. This is when I knew for sure something was wrong and I needed help. In the end, I was diagnosed with depression.
Now what? Physically I was in pain and now mentally. If the thought of me taking a shower brought me to tears, how in the heck was I going to work on my physical pain. Exercise. Forget about it. I was now a 27 yr old living a sedentary lifestyle in pain and dealing with a mental health crisis.
What happens now?
Where do I go from here?
With Love,
Steph
Watch out for Part 2 of Stephanie’s journey. Subscribe to Stephanie’s email list and be the first to know when the next exciting blog article drops!