I would like to take a blog post to share a personal experience that I went through because you might find the sharing interesting and someone useful for you if you ever encounter it.
At the start of this year, I would usually go to an overseas retreat with the company I work for Havend. This year we went Da Nang and you can read more about my Da Nang experience here (summary Da Nang is not bad!)
There is the serious part of retreat, there will be the fun part of the retreat.
And then there are the games of retreat.
Part of the games was competing with different groups of colleagues and on the second last day, a lot of the games were pretty physical. Not in an army-tiring way but just… more active.
One of the game was this Red Light, Green Light game. This was apparently adapted from the very popular Korean show Squid Game. When an organizer shouted “Green light!” we had to start running towards the finish line but we have to stop when the organizer shouted “Red light!”.
Getting to the finish line net the team points which will go towards the final score.
This red light green light “killed” a few of us including myself.
To win you got to sprint then stop then start sprinting.
I think about four including myself got really messed up here.
After the first sprint, then the stop, another sprint and another stop, I knew the legs are gone by the ache. I took it easy after that.
I took it easy but I still try to join in some light pickleball when some of them decide to go to a nearby pickleball court to play.
The Real Pain
The real nightmare started when I woke up the next day.
A soreness reverberate through the right side of my leg, travelling down the leg to different degree. Sometimes it is further down, sometimes it is just at the buttock area.
I could not sit well in a chair with any comfort.
There was one day left but the real issue was that I have four days of activity left. Among them including a home stay and a hike up the Bach Ma National Park.
Luckily or unluckily the National Park looked like this:
The weather was bad, we can’t see much and we decide to not make the hike.
The pain really disrupted how much I enjoyed the trip unfortunately.
All I can do for the trip was to apply some pain relief, take some painkillers in order to keep everything from falling apart.
You Can’t Solve a Painful Problem that Doesn’t have a Name to You
My back wasn’t great for a long time.
I can remember about 4-5 times in the 15 years where I sprained my back. In the early first or second time, my GP back in ST Engineering explain that the back gets progressively worse if you hurt it. It is on a downwards sliding curve. It gets a deeper drawdown every time we hurt it.
There were physiotherapy sessions that teaches me how to protect the back but to me, they feel pretty standard and doesn’t feel so targeted.
When I woke up the next day and felt that tingling soreness or numbness, I thought my back was sprained again. I dreaded continuing with the next 5 days in that condition because the last 4-5 times, it took like 3 weeks for me to get past the pain/discomfort.
I would have just accepted that I have to rest after coming back from Da Nang and just take it easy.
I remember a past casual conversation discussing this with an acquaintance who was an occupational therapist and he mentioned that as long as the person can move, they should start rehabbing by being more active.
This is counterintuitive to what I always know about. My GP never gave me this advise nor the people tasked to share physiotherapy technics at the hospital.
So I decide to see if I can do something to overcome it when I am back in Singapore.
The thing about discomfort like this is that you cannot be sure you hurt what you hurt. Equally challenging to research because what do you call this? Back sprain? You will get a ton of content that gives general preventive or soothing content.
I have seen them before or generally so generic that it is not exactly helpful.
During my last pain episode, I remember that a lot of these tingling numbness/discomfort to the legs is related to this Sciatica.
Sciatica is a medical term used to describe pain caused by irritation or compression of the sciatic nerve, the large nerve that runs from the lower spine through the buttocks and down each leg.
Sciatica is one of those sneaky struggles that doesn’t just show up—it takes over your life when you least expect it. It starts as a dull ache in your lower back, then suddenly this lightning-bolt pain shoots down your leg, making simple things—like standing up from a chair, tying your shoes, or even sitting at your desk—feel like navigating a minefield. It happens because the sciatic nerve, the longest nerve in your body, gets irritated or compressed, often by a slipped disc or tight muscles. And the worst part? You look perfectly fine on the outside while battling a pain that feels anything but invisible. But sciatica also teaches you to slow down, to strengthen your core, to rethink posture, and to finally treat your body like the lifelong companion it is.
Sciatica explains all the discomfort that I am feeling. But how do we get relief?
Do I have a Back Problem or Something Else?
The problem is that the nerve is a long line of nerve that extends from our lower back to the leg. This could be caused by slipped disc (at the back) but it could also be caused by a small but stubborn muscle deep in your buttock called the Piriformis muscle.
The piriformis has a job of keeping my hips stable.
When this muscle gets tight, overworked, or irritated, it can clamp down on the sciatic nerve that runs right beneath it (and in some people, even through it). That condition is called piriformis syndrome, and it can mimic classic sciatica so perfectly that you’d swear it’s coming from your spine.
I only learn that there are different reasons for Sciatica through some YouTube videos. Particularly, this series of video from Bob and Brad was immensely helpful. This is a Sciatica Series playlist.
Bob and Brad are two US physical therapists and this series is super comprehensive, currently 40 videos. They went deep into:
- Introduction to Sciatica and what it does. How would you feel if there is a problem?
- How to test if you have Sciatica versus something else?
- When do you need to see a doctor?
- How do you reduce the ‘pain makers’ or the things that will make you feel pain as a result of sciatica?
- Why you should walk more to relief the pain.
- What are the signs that your sciatica getting better or worse?
- Sciatica exercise for disc bulging or herniation
- How do you sleep? How do you get out of bed? How to go from sitting to stand?
They were very comprehensive to the point that I don’t think I will encounter some questions that they have the answer to unless I experience the issue when I live my life with pain. This is something that you can only ask your physiotherapist during the next visit and why such videos can be helpful.
What you will realize is that a lot of videos may lead you to the idea that most of the issues is slipped disc or lumbar related.
And that was my original suspect. What made it worse was the series of sprain back in the past which made me mentally conclude the problem is with my back.
I went through a few videos how to gain relief by working mainly on the back.
They don’t help in that… there wasn’t any relief or the comfort getting better because any relief to an area that felt pretty relief doesn’t improve the situation.
I went through a few different ways to relief the back until at one point I thought: What if the problem wasn’t the back? That I made the wrong guess?
What if it was the piriformis?
It started to make more sense because what got me into trouble was sprinting instead of running with heavy load or doing some sort of squads.
When I decide to perform some exercises that should bring relief more due to piriformis, I realize they helped better.
Is It Better to Gain Relief or Strengthen the Muscles?
In the past, I would have thought no one in the right mind would be trying to work on the problem area especially so early into the problem.
But after that conversation with my friend, my mind is open to the possibility that perhaps that would work better, if we do it properly.
Of course I don’t know if I am doing it properly or not so most of the resources that I tried to find was pain relief:
- Trying to roll the area.
- Trying to stretch.
It was only after I came across a couple of videos that explains rolling only brings temporary relief because the sciatica is a nerve and you are just relieving the muscles around.
Stretching doesn’t work because that doesn’t bring relief. Instead we should be “shortening” the muscles around because than the muscles can finally contract and do the work it used to do.
This video from Dr Charlie Johnson helps to explain:
I performed the “clamshell” exercise, which is to strengthen the muscles around the piriformis and improve hip stability.
The clamshell wasn’t new to me. In fact, I been doing it the year before because I actually wanted to make it a point to improve/fix my hips in anyway I can.
Then why didn’t you do this in the first place Kyith!
Because how I know the piriformis is so related to that hip portion? When you have a problem, it doesn’t come across as “oh shit, I think there is something wrong with my piriformis. I shouldn’t stretch it. Doing clamshell would solve this.”
It comes across as “Why is the pain sometimes at the bottom leg or the hip even after I rolled it!”
Any way, I carefully perform some clam shell that day.
That actual day I felt better, in a way the past few days could not.
I just diligently perform more clam shell in routine intervals throughout the next 3 days.
The problem was gone.
Epilogue – Some Lessons Learnt
My struggles with alleviating pain after an accident may mirror how some of you try to deal with your problems with investing.
You try to search for a solution.
The process is not always smooth sailing. You may end up trying different things before you seem to find the solution.
But another episode came along which made you wonder if you learn the right things and applied the right remedy from last time.
You may eventually conclude that all problems are different and so are the solutions.
My struggles with investing, and long history with the markets lead me to conclude that on a high level, a few investment concepts sticks throughout regardless of market regimes, inflation, recession, time period, sectors or regions. If we are able to understand them well, we would be able to navigate the markets better. We could setup a portfolio that does what we want and not have the problems we don’t want.
I never glean that lesson from successfully alleviating my pain this time round.
I have to know a subject well technically, and have enough experiences looking at different kind of cases to be able to make a high level conclusion about sciatica pain, slip discs, piriformis issues.
Are there high level axioms (but not too high level) that will help us focus upon for wellness just like what I glean about investing?
Is what my friend shared really correct? Is what Bob and Brad correct or Dr Johnson more correct?
I think that is a struggle of someone who doesn’t want to spend so much of my time thinking about these things. But more and more I do realize that I could not stop paying attention to these problems anymore.
We either spend money to learn more from private physiotherapists, wellness coach or take the long route of learning ourselves because it is important enough for us. The challenge is it doesn’t always mean that you pay a lot of money, you get what you really want. You learn the right thing.
I fully respect you if you are really good at your craft (if you are a physical therapist reading this) but there are different grades of skill and sometimes they might not be separated by price.
It is no different from learning to invest.
You pay Kyith doesn’t mean you can make loads of money.
I think feeling another bout of discomfort like this really made me reflect and think about how life would be in old age when I may face this kind of stuff again and again.
That is not a pleasant thought.
You really feel like a disable person. Cannot put on pants properly unless you do it in a certain way. Same as putting on socks. It made me have deeper empathy for those struggling with some sort of disability.
Some of my friends in the financial independence or people would DIY and invest would wonder whether it is a good idea to find a young adviser to plan for you, or teach you to invest.
How can a younger person put themselves in the position of a much older person, and be able to understand the weight of the problems that the older person have to deal with?
My personal thoughts:
- Not everyone who DIY and invest, or plan for themselves are technically sophisticated enough to craft a plan that is sound enough. Some DIY investment plans can be disastrous for other people.
- The younger person, or a person that doesn’t have the same make up as you, cannot understand stand the weight of your problems, your anxiety. If they do, how they plan for you, how they persuade you might be different.
This experience just show me how old I have become. Starting to sprint then stop wasn’t that big of an issue for a long time.
And it is time to be more careful. This is not new. I have been wanting to make this year a year where I place more emphasis on improving the hips. This ordeal disappointed me and made me more focus.
Lastly, I don’t blame the planners of the games. We, the older people, have to take responsibility to remind each other that some prep work may be more important before these activities.
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Kyith is the Owner and Sole Writer behind Investment Moats. Readers tune in to Investment Moats to learn and build stronger, firmer wealth foundations, how to have a Passive investment strategy, know more about investing in REITs and the nuts and bolts of Active Investing.
Readers also follow Kyith to learn how to plan well for Financial Security and Financial Independence.
Kyith worked as an IT operations engineer from 2004 to 2019. Currently, he works as a Senior Solutions Specialist in Insurance Start-up Havend. All opinions on Investment Moats are his own and does not represent the views of Providend.
You can view Kyith’s current portfolio here, which uses his Free Google Stock Portfolio Tracker.
His investment broker of choice is Interactive Brokers, which allows him to invest in securities from different exchanges all over the world, at very low commission rates, without custodian fees, near spot currency rates.
You can read more about Kyith here.
