Will a torn hamstring get worse before it gets better?

Question

I've been getting fairly bad pain in the back of my leg every time I straighten it after sitting for any significant period of time for about four months now. About two months ago (after two months of pain) I finally went to see a doctor who told me I'd torn my hamstring - fair enough, I hurt myself it needs time to heal - he said give it another two months. Over the past couple weeks, however, the pain has gotten much worse and will come after any time at all spent sitting or lying with my leg bent and the pain now shoots down as far as my ankle and up to the top of my leg; to get up from a chair I have to slowly push myself up with my arms and VERY slowly straighten out and walk like a bent over old lady with a cane for a few minutes. I went back to a clinic a couple days ago and the doc prescribed me 600mg ibuprofens and told me to give it a couple more months. Today the pain has increased even more and the ibuprofen really isn't doing anything. Is this really normal? Will a hamstring tear feel like it's getting worse before it gets better? My pain tolerance is usually pretty good, but this is getting to be a bit much for me.

Answer 1

In essence a muscle shouldn't get worse before it gets better. It just gets better. If you use your muscle often during the day I would say that that's the reason that your in a lot of pain. When a muscle is torn it needs a long time to heal and if you keep using it then the muscle will never heal. No matter how good the muscle feels when your using it, the pain afterwards shows that your doing some pretty bad damage. My advice would be to lay off the leg for a little bit and if the pain gets worse then go and see the doctor he might be able to prescribe you some anti-inflammatory (which helps the muscle heal faster).

Good luck and I hope everything works out.