10/5
Okay, so I need to figure out why my left hip flexor spasms so much when I lay on it in bed. Then, it starts to get sweaty, and my hip flexes so much, and spasms so much, and I can’t lay on my left side! It’s tough because that’s the side I want to try to sleep on! When I’m on my right hip, my legs don’t respond this way? Also too, my legs are getting in good extension at the hips and knees, so why does the left side do this? Does it have to do with how my left hip and glute are under engaged? Or what more is it?
At times when I have a hard time figuring out what is going on in this left hip flexor, for some additional ideas or areas to look at, I’ll type this question into the AI and see what it’s able to come up with, so here we go;
“So, what you’re describing fits several interacting neurological and mechanical factors that are very common after a T6 incomplete SCI, especially when one side (like your left) is lagging in activation and integration. Let’s unpack it layer by layer so you can see why this happens and what you can do about it:
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1. Why the Left Hip Flexor Spasms Specifically When You Lie on It
When you lie on your left side, the muscles and sensory receptors along that hip are compressed, which:
• Increases pressure and stretch on the hip flexor (iliopsoas, rectus femoris).
• Triggers spastic reflex arcs — because your spinal cord below T6 may still send exaggerated reflex responses without full descending inhibition from the brain.
• Activates local stretch receptors (muscle spindles) that can interpret even normal compression as a “stretch” or “threat,” leading to involuntary contraction (spasm).
So: when your hip is under pressure, your brain doesn’t yet interpret it as safe or stable, and instead it reacts by tightening the hip flexor.
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2. Why It’s Worse on the Left Side
it’s likely connected to under-engaged glutes and core on that side.
• The left glute and deep hip stabilizers (glute med, minimus, obturator internus) aren’t counterbalancing the hip flexor yet.
• The hip flexor then becomes a “substitute stabilizer”, overworking to hold the pelvis in a pseudo-stable position.
• This asymmetry is reinforced when you lie on that side — the left hip becomes both the weight-bearing surface and the overactive stabilizer.
Think of it like your body trying to “anchor” itself by gripping the front of the hip because the back side isn’t firing strongly enough yet.
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3. The Sweating
That’s actually an autonomic reaction.
• The spasms increase metabolic activity and local sympathetic nerve firing, which increases sweating.
• It’s also a sign that your body is recruiting more neural activity below the level of injury — the same pathways that cause muscle spasm can also affect sweat glands.
So, paradoxically, that sweating can mean the nerves are reconnecting and over-reacting during this stage of reintegration.
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4. Why It Doesn’t Happen on the Right Side
The right side is more neurologically organized and stable right now:
• Glute activation is better → less compensatory tone.
• Sensory mapping is clearer → pressure is interpreted as “contact,” not “stretch.”
• Motor inhibition works better → fewer reflexive spasms.
Basically, your right side “trusts” the input, your left side “fights” it.
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5. What You Can Do to Fix It
Here’s a progression you can try to gradually retrain your left side to relax and stabilize when you lie on it:
Pre-Sleep Desensitization (5–10 min)
• Use a massage gun, foam roller, or gentle manual massage over the left hip flexor and glute before bed.
• Follow with diaphragmatic breathing and gentle pelvic tilts while in sidelying, focusing on letting the front of the hip “melt” toward the bed.
Daytime Activation
• Bridge variations: emphasize pressing evenly through both heels, consciously recruiting the left glute.
• Sidelying clamshells (with or without resistance band): isolate left glute medius.
• Supine hip-flexor releases: hold a gentle stretch with glute activation on the opposite side.
Positioning Adjustments
• Try placing a small pillow or wedge behind your lower back or between your knees when lying on your left side — this reduces direct pressure on the anterior hip and helps neutralize pelvic rotation.
• Slightly extend my left leg (don’t curl it up) and bend the right knee a bit for counterbalance.
• Keep a thin pillow between knees to avoid adductor tone pulling the leg inward.
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The Big Picture
Yes — this is very much part of my ongoing left-side reintegration:
• Under-engaged glute + overactive flexor = spasm cycle.
• Compression = trigger because of incomplete sensory re-mapping.
• Sweating = local sympathetic overactivity tied to those same spinal pathways.
With consistent sensory retraining, glute activation, and desensitization, this pattern almost always diminishes over weeks to months.”
So I’ll have to try to mess around with the theragun and see if I can make any progress? Who knows if it’s right or not, seems to me that it might be on the right track, and I haven’t tried that idea yet, so worth exploring!
What’s been so interesting is how my legs and abdomen were this whole night! It kept me up way too much, but what I’ve noticed is how much my legs and abdomen is engaging when I’m having some gastric reflex?! Like I’m waking up my whole body with this, and it’s kinda wild how much activation I’m feeling right now, my quads, gastroc’s, ankles, feet, and toes are activating so much right now it’s insane! I’m also hearing something and feeling new activity in my GI tract, that feels very new since the accident. Callie asked, “what’s changed?” And to be honest, I am not sure if anything except having a drink, or the amount of movement? It’s so crazy right now because so many parts of my body are waking up so hard right now, and I can’t seem to notice that all the GI activity and major discomfort was where a lot of this may have originated?
Is there a 3rd universal unit? Of length? Has this been defined yet? What’s interesting is I’m reading about this in Hyperspace, and that hasn’t been universally defined yet? I’m going to have to do some more research into this because it feels kinda unbelievable, really?
You know I’m really good at starting things, but not quite finishing them. Kinda interesting to think about, really. Just something I’ve thought and realize I want and need to make a change for the better.
10/6
So is it, I have too much “muscle tone” because I’m not getting enough inhibitory signals, and too much excitation signals, right? Why isn’t there a stim device setup to send both? To send inhibitory in a resting state, and to switch to excitation only when you need the activation? Honestly I need to look into this, and see what it would take to make something like this!
Summation, the neurophysiological idea of signals being sent, are the combination of both excitatory and inhibitory signals. This reminds me of how in the book ‘Physics and Philosophy’ when Niels Bohr made a comment that a child asked, “can I have a penny’s worth of these two pieces of candy?” and he then hands him two pieces and said, “I’ll let you split them up into a penny’s worth.” (What is the exact quote?)….. It’s interesting, I think there’s something to both of these ideas and how they are interlinked. Turns out Bernard Katz determined that the smallest amount of signal being sent in a neuron is called a “quantal” amount. Huh. Interesting. “Neurotransmitters are released into the synapse in small packages called quanta, which are stored inside structures called synaptic vesicles. I guess, I want to know if it’s possible to make a device for sending inhibitory signals to muscle bodies? Does this exist?
Here’s the quote I was referencing — from Niels Bohr reflecting on complementarity and measurement:
“A child asked for a penny’s worth of mixed candy. The shopkeeper gave him two pieces and said, ‘Here, you divide them into a penny’s worth.’”
Bohr used it as a metaphor for how you can’t divide certain phenomena, or ‘indivisibility’ — you can’t separate complementary aspects (like wave and particle, or excitation and inhibition) beyond a certain scale.
Because in my legs, I think the major issue is the lack of inhibition, at rest they are tight and when they fire, the agonist and antagonist muscle group fires at the same time?! I just need to understand how to essentially “unlock” the inhibitory signals. It just doesn’t make sense, if an excitatory signal is making its way through, even if it’s poorly, why can’t an inhibitory signal? Or, is it that I’m not doing the right things? Is that it, though? Did the inhibition go somewhere else? Or is it still “there”?
Bernard Katz showed that neurotransmitter release occurs in discrete vesicular packets — the smallest functional unit of communication, the quantal release.
So, both Bohr and Katz were kinda pointing to this same principle:
The universe — whether at the quantum or neural scale — is built of irreducible, probabilistic, complementary events. You can’t have excitation without inhibition any more than you can have light without shadow.
So I’m describing disinhibition, which is one of the hallmark patterns after a T6 incomplete spinal cord injury I seem to be finding out and simultaneously experiencing.
What might be happening in my legs right now possibly, is:
After an SCI (especially above the lumbar cord), the descending inhibitory tracts — mainly:
• Corticospinal
• Reticulospinal (lateral and medial)
• Rubrospinal
Can be partially disrupted.
These descending fibers normally inhibit spinal interneurons that would otherwise over-excite motor neurons.
When that inhibition is lost, the system defaults to a “high-tone” mode:
Effect —> Spasticity/tone at rest
Motor neurons become hyper-excitable without descending inhibition.
Co-contraction (agonist + antagonist firing together)
Reciprocal inhibitory interneurons aren’t being driven, so both muscle groups fire.
Sensory input (like stretch) triggers too big of a reflex response.
So I think my quads and hamstrings (or hip flexors and extensors) both receive “Go” signals because nothing is keeping one quiet when the other activates.
The neurophysiology of that co-contraction
In a healthy cord:
1. Stretching the quads activates Ia afferents → excites quads → inhibits hamstrings through Ia inhibitory interneurons.
2. The descending tracts reinforce that inhibition to keep movement smooth.
After SCI:
• The Ia inhibitory interneurons lose descending modulation.
• They may even become hyper-excitable in erratic ways, firing without coordination.
• The result: the hamstrings don’t turn off when the quads activate — so you get that locked-up feeling or “stiff firing” on both sides.
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3. Why tone might persist at rest
Because without descending inhibition, the baseline membrane potential of motor neurons shifts closer to threshold.
Even small sensory input — touch, position change, temperature, GI movement — can trigger reflexive firing.
That’s why I am feeling my legs “engage” even when lying down: the reflex loops are running without a brake pedal. I just don’t get it
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4. Here’s where I’m looking to restore or mimic inhibition
Here’s what some of the science (and my application) seems to suggest for re-balancing those circuits:
a. Reciprocal activation therapy
Train the opposing muscle to activate in rhythm, forcing the cord to relearn inhibition.
Example:
• Voluntary quad contraction → immediately follow with hamstring stretch, or theragun work.
• Alternate this pattern repeatedly.
b. Low-frequency tSCS (5–10 Hz) – something I need to do more research into?
May enhance presynaptic inhibition by desensitizing Ia afferents.
This decreases reflex gain and can reduce co-contraction at rest.
c. Vibration reflex training
Applying vibration (80–100 Hz) to one muscle’s tendon can suppress its antagonist through spinal reflex competition — a mechanical way to hopefully bias inhibition.
d. Proprioceptive clothing or compression
This has been one that’s been interesting and want to do more research on!
Even light, continuous sensory input (from compression wear) increases afferent regularity, which can calm spontaneous firing by providing coherent sensory feedback to the dorsal horn.
It’s not “inhibitory” per se, but it reduces random excitatory noise. My legs literally have been so much more relaxed and all the noise “quiets” when I do this. It’s so weird.
e. Breathing and rhythm work
Deep diaphragmatic breathing (slow exhale emphasis) drives the parasympathetic system, indirectly increasing central inhibition and lowering motor neuron excitability. I’m still learning about neuron excitability, so I’ll have to see where this goes?
f. Task-specific locomotor training
When repeated, patterned stepping or standing is practiced with correct loading, it re-engages inhibitory interneurons associated with reciprocal gait — gradually retraining the spinal circuits to phase-lock properly again.
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5. Other Ideas
• Using alternating frequencies to create “on” and “off” phases for flexor/extensor groups.
• Real-time EMG feedback to deliver short low-frequency inhibitory bursts when co-contraction is detected.
spinal neuroprosthetics?
I’m just having a hard time of “letting this go.” Meaning my body and the signals that are being sent from my spinal cord. Obviously things are happening and parts of my legs are activating hence why I have so much muscle tone, but it’s just not the other parts that are getting the right inhibitory signals so I figure if there’s things I can actually do to improve that I probably should do that, like some of the items above.
I guess, I just think of this as any other engineering problem I have to solve, I just don’t have a lot of the information to try to do this like I do if it’s a more typical mechanical problem, but I know where to look for the information and questions to ask, so I know these are some of the important bits that really help. Without asking the right questions makes doing certain things very difficult.
Because right now this morning, I’m feeling activation in my toes, my ankles, my calves, my knees, and my knees. I’m really feeling a ton of sensation! That’s very very significant. I guess it’s just getting these Fellers to shut off. It’s tough because if I’m not getting any inhibitory signal from the spinal cord, it seems based on the information that I’m finding out my diaphragm is too excited (as in too many excitatory signals) so I have that keep doing the deep breathing out (exhale), as well as the compression pants, but there’s gotta be something more. There’s gotta be more to it and it sounds like I’m getting close to the meat of today’s research!
What’s also interesting is how significant my right leg feels from yesterday to today. It feels like a “whole leg”! It doesn’t really feel like much is missing from him. I do know that when I was up in the standing frame yesterday, I was really focusing on contracting my glutes, probably as hard as I can, and I do know that translated into some huge amounts of response from my legs.
So today was interesting. I spent a lot of time making the “mmmmm”, “oohhhhh”, and “ommmmm” sound! As I’m always looking for ways to activate my parasympathetic nervous system, I really latched onto this today! And honestly, it felt wild! My body felt like it was communicating better than ever!
Heck, my glutes were kicking in like crazy today too! I was getting thrown back into the chair because they were kicking in so much this evening! I really needed to make sure I was getting on the floor, and moving around! I was pretty happy with how I was doing these prone overhead “ball rolls” where I was making circular motions with my arm, over the ball. I was trying to do whatever I could in the prone position to get my arms, shoulders, and back engaging just a little more in extension more and more than I ever did. It worked out pretty well! And then, when I went to get up from the floor, I just did it all in one fluid motion, where I didn’t even stop after I got up on my feet, I just worked to push myself up!
I’m laying down now, time to read and get some rest.
“ There is still complete equivalence between the two levels of language with respect to the correctness of a statement, but not with respect to the incorrectness.” [1]
10/7
Wow, I’m surprised at how awake I feel this morning! Also too, my calves, ankles feet are all feeling a ton and it’s also helping me feel a lot more balanced! It’s been interesting. I’ve been noticing how my body‘s been able to regulate its temperature much more easily! Like last night I was really noticing when I needed to take the hoodie off!
How does the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle relate back to the body? If you cannot know an atom’s position and velocity at the same time, what does this mean for our neurons? Is this like what I was discussing yesterday? The idea about excitatory and inhibitory signals, and how they’re sent? Summation is the term, so I’m wondering if I can expand upon this idea?
Are you not truly able to know where the inhibitory and excitatory signals are simultaneously? I’ll need to learn more, maybe there is something here?
Therapy went well today!
Vocals! And resonance! And humming! All these ideas are really interesting how the amplification of specific frequencies in our throat, neck, chest, or abdomen really helps amplify the sound generated from our bodies I will need to continue this diaphragm work!
So, what’s really interesting is that I’m sitting in the chair, on the edge of the seat, with my feet on the floor. That part isn’t interesting, what is interesting is what my lower abdominals/ pelvic floor/ glutes/ hip flexors are doing? I don’t know what muscle group exactly this is, but it’s extremely low and deep in my lower abdomen & pelvis, and my feet push into the floor, glutes squeeze, and it literally feels like I’m trying to stand up. Almost like my entire lower abdomen is kicking in? This is so wild, because I don’t know if I have had a spasm like this one to date? It’s also able to be queued by me inhaling and taking a breath. When I breathe in, down low, I can feel whatever muscle that is “pressing down” and seriously feels like I’m trying to stand up? What is this and how can I build off this??
10/8
Man oh man, these legs and abdomen are activating and feeling so much! I squeeze my right glute, I squeeze my left! I squeeze my left quad, I squeeze my right! My calves and shins are waking up! My knees are feeling so much! Ankles and feet are feeling a ton! It was so interesting yesterday doing the proprioceptive work with Danica, working my knees, ankles, and toes! This was great because I really am feeling so well when my knees are bent and extended, and I’m started to more reliably feel when my ankles are, and the toes? That was a first! That was so interesting to do!
I really want to learn more about all these muscles in my pelvic floor, and how it rounds out my core. It seems to be so wild how these muscle groups aren’t the main item of focus in PT sometimes! But to be honest, I can feel the ramp up from down low! Shoot! Yesterday after PT I had to tell myself that not all these sensations down there are you having to go pee. It’s so odd and so interesting. There are so many muscles packed in down there!
There are approximately 36 muscles that attach to the pelvis….. hmm… that’s an insane amount!
The QL… the quadratus lumborum QUADRATUS LUMBORUM, let’s focus on this next go around.
So like, seeing that college kid from MSOE riding his bike pretty well through the streets and up the hill just makes me hurt. I’m sitting in the car, after getting out of therapy from a session that ended not quite so well. It’s awful, how my body has such a hard time, this time with my GI tract. I just have to look around at the world, and see how it passes me by. I don’t like thinking about things in the future, and not having to see me doing whatever it is, on my feet. It’s sad. It bums me out. It’s depressing. I just go back to a former version of myself, as a young fella, and you never imagine your future self doing things like I’m doing, when you’re a kid. It makes my head hurt. Also when my body misbehaves, and doesn’t cooperate. It’s awful, and makes my head hurt. Why is it that my pants are wet, and I’m dehydrated? It literally twists, and warps, my sense of self and who I am.
(Sigh). I’m trying. Every day. But it sure is hard. My mother sent me some nice fun little set of words the other day, I can’t quite remember all three of them. So I need to double check, here’s one of the quotes she shared;
What’s crazy, is I didn’t remember what this quote was when I wrote that first sentence. Not a bad quote, in a moment like this right now. To be honest, he’s right. It’s weird too, because I didn’t remember what this quote was, it was under the title, “Keeping Perspective”. I guess it’s hard sometimes, to always be able to keep perspective, and truth be told, I’m really glad I went back to check what that quote was, and here it is. My body has really come quite a long way, but when you have busy days, don’t get in the standing frame, and your pants have something in them that shouldn’t be there, it’s enough to make you feel completely defeated. It’s so awful to have to experience this as a grown adult. I’m over here wondering why my heart rate is elevated at PT, why I’m so uncomfortable, and then the smell.. yeah you guessed it. So I cut it short, head to the bathroom, and clean myself up. It’s just so hard to have to go thru this, because you never have ever expected in your wildest dreams to have to go through something like this day in and day out. My reality is feeling more and more dream like, and I feel like I’m never even sleeping, so who knows what my dreams are. If you had to go back in time and tell your kid self this, or look them in the eyes, and figure out what you would tell them, I guess it might go something like this;
“Hey dude, you didn’t do anything wrong. Turns out life is tougher than we all ever know. (As I’m crying telling him). It’s not fair and it’s not easy. But also, don’t ever give up. Because I’m not doing that to you. You worked so dang hard to get every single thing you have. Yeah, you’re going to have to work really hard for all of it. No one paid your way. No one saved you from any disasters you have to go through. You’re going to become the most resilient F&$&@¥ out there. And you’re going to be kind to others. Turns out too, there are a lot of people who care for you, too. We can’t forget them. They love you. And you love them. Your family and your future…. well I will let you figure that one out. You have a whole life to live, as do I. We aren’t going to let anything stop us, because when we stop trying, and putting in effort, that’s when we fail. That’s when it gets tough. Keep your head up, keep trying, for yourself and for those around you. We’re more than this. More than this day. You got this.” – Just Joe
I read through this and about cried the whole time I re-read it. I’m over here thinking, “do I tell him more? Do I tell him less?” And I feel like the fact is, we all have to just figure it out every day. Not completely on our own, but ultimately, on our own doing. So we can’t tell ourselves everything, because that doesn’t even seem to make sense. Plus, we have to have some surprises too, in life, to keep things interesting. (Sigh). Yeah. Compared to what? Well, if you compare your life to your own life, this shit is hard. I’m not comparing anyone else but to myself. I’m going to keep on trying and keep on going, but for goodness sakes, sometimes I don’t even know what I’m always working for. I guess a problem for another day.
PT turned out pretty okay for the first hour with Danica, though. I was glad for that. I mentioned to her all the work and learning I want to do on all 36 muscles that connect to the pelvis. We talked about the QL, transverse abdominis, internal and external obliques, and honestly it was pretty cool. She got me in a side plank and I was activating those muscles that I know were going to have a hard time activating! Which was cool. Trying to actually do some pelvic tilts while supine went better than I thought too. (Sigh). Who knows what it all means, but I’m going to have to keep trying every day.
10/8
Everything I did yesterday, sure has my legs feeling more and more and more and more there!! This is incredible! I cannot believe it, really! Starting up top, my abdomen, I can feel how much lower he is engaging! My low back, hips, glutes are kicking in! All the side planks and pelvic tilts are really firing things up!! All that singing and humming has me really buzzing down there! My entire legs are “surrounding” and filling in more and more completely, and my knees are feeling nice and tight! Then my calves and shins, more and more activation!
I’m going to be honest, this is a grind! My body is responding slowly but surely! I was saying to Danica yesterday, and I want to expand on this thought out more; If your body is even just a little bit “capable” of a muscle contraction, or movement, is that all it needs to be able to one day fully get there? Even if it’a a trace contraction? It almost feels this way, because I know all the quadruped, supine, tall kneeling, and now mini squat work is leading to something. I truly do believe it’s leading to me being able to stand on my own. I know, it sounds wild, but I feel it. I think that this is how I needed to have done it, from the ground up. Just like an infant. Activating ALL of the muscles in my core, abdomen, pelvic region, THEN finally leading into my leg muscles! And not just the big ones, but the stabilizers! I think it’s the stabilizer muscles, the small ones, who help make it possible for that “little bit” to happen. And kick things off? So if I can wake up the small stabilizers, it seems like it has this Waterfall effect on the larger ones? Because that’s exactly what it feels like I’m feeling! I think too, that’s why all this lung/ diaphragm work has been so instrumental too, because it’s activating the small stabilizers in addition to the large diaphragm?! Maybe. Just maybe.. this might be it?
Huh, I think too this is why Therese has CONTINUALLY asked me to get my magic circle work done for my abductors and adductors! I think? I don’t know, really. I’m just a sample size of 1. Might as well keep getting up each day, and trying it. Because I’ll tell you what, it’s doing something!
I wonder what I could name this theory? Or does this already exist?
“The Stabilizer Cascade Theory”
→ The idea that activating the body’s smallest stabilizing muscles triggers a neurological cascade, leading to reactivation of larger, more global muscle groups and eventual functional movement.
So like, if I want to get on my feet every day, and get my legs working and get straighter, I’m always trying to get in the standing frame, but what if I just got on the floor, and did my mini-squats? I’m almost wondering how that would go? Or even if I did them from the chair to the pull up bar? I don’t know, I’m always brainstorming and wondering what else I can do?
Hmm. So. I have this thought. As I’m humming and trying to get longer sustained exhalations, I was thinking about the word/term/chant “Om” and how it has some interesting meanings. But! I’m wondering, does it also create some interesting point of resonance in our bodies or mind? It’s interesting how I’m feeling my body respond to this, and it’s just got me thinking? Is there something here? Is that why it’s so powerful in some religions and cultures?
10/9
Nothing to add for notes for today.
10/10
Nothing to add for notes for today.
10/11
Wow, I noticed it. I noticed how skipping a day of notes makes me feel. It’s so interesting!
Had a nice day celebrating Ian and Danielle’s wedding! What was interesting, was how my body has been responding to all the lung/ vocal practicing! I was able to get some “Jückz” (Yuh-kzz) out! I’m having a hard time with the phonetical spelling for that sound, I suppose if you know, you know (IYKYK)? Ask Jake to belt out one, and you will know! My abdomen, and belly, really is feeling so worked from all of the singing and dancing we did last night! My core, hips, legs are all really feeling the work that was being done last night! It really was an all day event again for my body, it’s so interesting to feel how my body is moving more and more, slowly but surely!
Works Cited
- Heisenberg, Werner. Physics & Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science. HarperPerennial, 2007.
- “Operant Conditioning.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 14 Aug. 2025, en.me.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning.
- “Cardiac Conduction System.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 31 May 2025, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiac_conduction_system.
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscles_of_the_hip
- https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantal_neurotransmitter_release
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