Alternately titled: all the reasons you should be seeing my doctor.

All right, where did we leave off after Sean’s birthday… Oh yes, I told you all about the wonderfulness of Whole Health Associates. And promised to tell you about Dr. Hinson. So let’s get to it.

Everyone say hiiiii to Dr. Hinson!

also borrowed from Dr. Hinson’s Facebook page. HIIII DR. HINSON!!

Before I talk about him I feel like I should do a little backstory. Long, long ago in January I started having knee problems (oh, did you know that already? weird.) I initially did some research into people who were in the sports medicine field that were also runners and I stumbled across Dr. Pederson. You may remember him. I really liked him – really nice guy. I saw him for a month before we parted ways. It was an amicable split though.

I left because he told me that he wasn’t sure why I wasn’t getting better and referred me to an orthopedic surgeon. So I made an appointment with one. I hated him. He was one of those doctors that basically whizzed in and out of the room in 5 minutes flat and made me feel like I was going crazy. He told me to get an MRI – which was inconclusive – and sent me on to physical therapy. After a month of PT I was supposed to go back and see him again.  Somewhere during this time I also hopped over to Rice and went and met with one of the trainers there, courtesy of my FIL who attended Rice. Again, really nice guy, but just not what I needed.

So I went to PT. I actually liked going to PT, it was kinda fun, but it didn’t really do too much for me. I was still having some pain when I ran – though markedly less than I was having before – and then my sessions ran out.

At this point I decided I was about to throw in the towel. Being injured and seeing doctor after doctor with no improvement is mentally exhausting. I went through several breakdowns and was just about ready to hang up my running shoes (except not really) when Lexy emailed me and told me to go see her husband.

My response? Ehhh thanks but I’ve already dropped a small fortune on this and am not really interested in spending even more money. Or something like that.

She persisted.

I put it off.

She gently pushed.

I finally gave in and emailed him.

We swapped a few emails, then spent a long time talking on the phone during my lunch break one day. Finally I broke down and made an appointment to go see him, Sean in tow (because Sean was a tiny bit concerned about me meeting a doctor that I had found via blogging without him being there to protect me if he actually turned out to be a creep. Sorry Dr. Hinson, we know you aren’t.)

Our initial session went well. We basically just went over what was going on and what he thought he could do to help me out. So I made another appointment. And another. And another. And about 50 more after that. If you follow me on DailyMile or regularly read my blog or are anywhere within 50 feet of me then you know that I’m regularly running 20-30 miles a week again, courtesy of Dr. Hinson.

I can’t say enough good things about him and I’m not really sure where to start, so I’ll begin by saying – I’m probably not an easy patient to have.

I am needy and talkative and I question everything and I make really lame jokes when I am stressed or uncomfortable or upset.

One of the first things Dr. Hinson told me (and probably regrets ever saying to me) was, “just text me if you have any questions, any new pains, any concerns, whatever”.

Um, are you serious? What he didn’t know was that I love to text. I hate being on the phone, but I love to text.

Being able to text your doctor is phenomenal. I’ll be the very first to admit that I have abused that privilege. I text constantly. Any twinge of new pain, any random question that I have, any advice that I need gets texted over immediately. Oh it’s Sunday? Hmmm… I’ll just send that anyway, he won’t mind…. Oh it’s Tuesday morning at 8am and I’m driving to work… better send this text before I forget (at stoplights, naturally). Oh I literally just left his office 10 minutes ago… It’s fine I’ll just go ahead and send this one teensy little text…

I am a really needy patient.

And he has been amazing at dealing with that. He has answered all of my obsessive text messages and explained everything I’ve needed to know in excruciating detail. When it’s too much for a text, he gets on the phone and talks my ear off. If he doesn’t understand where the pain is that I’m referring to he’ll have me text him a picture of me pointing to the place that hurts. He laughs at all my lame jokes when I’m attempting to mask my frustration with weak humor or am feeling particularly witty. I need all of these things.

He also is not a breeze in and breeze out type of doctor. Any time I’ve been at Whole Health Associates I’ve been pretty much immediately admitted to his office where he has focused his attention on me 100%. He has talked to me, been very up front with me about what’s going on with my body, what I can change to help speed things along, and what’s completely out of my control. He’s walked through everything he’s doing with me so that I know what’s going on and has sat with me for long after my session has ended answering my questions and talking me through things. He’s given me advice on how to train, pumped me full of supplements to help my body even out, and recommended several different books for me to read to help back up what he’s telling me.

He’s also never told me to take weird drugs I’ve never heard of, which I am vehemently against anyway. I don’t even take Advil when I have a headache, so there’s no way I’m putting some six word drug in my body. Instead everything he’s given me have been natural supplements that support my body and make me feel like a million bucks.

Most importantly, he’s repeatedly told me to not be afraid of running again. I think when you’re recovering from an injury it’s very easy to be overly cautious (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing) and to be scared out of your mind that you’re going to reinjure something. He has helped alleviate some of the stress that comes with that by being open and honest and ready to talk when I need someone to talk to.

Dr. Hinson really is night and day from any other doctor that I’ve ever seen and I really can’t recommend him enough if you’re having any sort of sports-related issue.

So, to wrap this up, go see him. Just don’t expect to be his favorite patient because I’ve already got that position filled.