Hip, knee, and ankle pain

I tried to search the forum for my question(s), but I’ve come up empty. If there are answers already out there, please forgive my inept searching and point me toward the links.

Quick background: I’ve been practicing yoga for seven years, and just this April I completed my 200-hour teacher cert. I have never hurt myself in yoga; I am healthy and strong. And very very frustrated right now.

Three Tuesdays ago, I hurt myself in a vinyasa class. I had worked with this teacher before, but not extensively, and I trust her. The injury was my own fault: when she demonstrated what we’d be doing, alarm bells went off in my head, but I did it anyway.

Essentially, the pinnacle pose of the class was a supta padmasana. We did almost a full hour of poses, including many many hip openers, and I was very nicely warmed-up. Near the end of the class, she instructed us to lie on our backs and guided us into padmasana, knees pointing up. We were then told to slowly lower our knees to the mat, still in padmasana. I felt tightness and restriction on the left side, but made it down, and then we switched legs. When lowering my knees on the right side (right leg on top), I felt something tear in my right hip. I couldn’t get my legs out of padmasana - the more I tried, the more tearing I felt. Breathing slowly and carefully to stop the panic, I managed to raise my knees, untangle myself and lie prone.

My hip hurt a lot for two straight days. It did not matter what action I did: external rotation, abuction, adduction, flexion, extension–pain, pain, pain, pain, pain. Internal rotation relieved some of the tightness at first, but even that hurt after a while. I took four days away from physical practice to rest it, and the pain lessened. When I returned to practice, I was very careful to limit open hip postures and took everything very gently.

It is better now–much, much better–but there is still pain if I sit in sukasana for too long or stand for too long. I’m very afraid of further damage. I’ve only been able to go to two vinyasa classes a week (five total) since the incident, because it hurts much more after practice.

Also: the week before this injury, I banged my right knee very hard and gave it a nasty bruise–you could see it from space, it was so big. The bruise healed quickly (maybe 6 days), but now there’s a cellophane-like crinkling whenever I bend my knee. As this is the same leg as my hip-tearing incident, I am wondering if the cellophane noise is from the bruising or the hip tearing.

Also, also: this weekend, I did a lot of walking (on city streets), and now my right hip feels fine, my right knee is tight and a little sore, and my right ankle (right above the external malleolus) is absolutely killing me. I am having trouble putting weight on my right leg. Is this injury just traveling down my leg?!

I know I’m going on a bit here. Here are my main questions:
Do I need a doctor, or can I take care of this myself? If I need a doctor, what kind? Am I being unreasonable expecting this to have gone away in three weeks?
I have a few guesses about what tore in my hip, but I’d like to hear what others think it could be. It was deep, not superficial, and there was no surface bruising. I have fair ROM of the right hip, but nothing like it was before the incident.

Insight, help, suggestions, thoughts…anything anyone can offer will be most welcome.

Thanks for wading through this post.
patti

Well Patti it’s tough to respond to so much. So I’ll try and be very focused and offer an economy of words relative to content you provide.

Well rooted you are in the yoga philosophy to so directly take personal responsibility for your injury. Hopefully more practitioners will follow the trail you’ve cleared. In fact it is that very thing that will facilitate your healing as you will not have to sift through the muck of blaming.

I’m a bit confused. You say it is much much better but still pain then in your paragraph about walking you say it is fine. This leaves me a bit befuddled.

As for your questions at the bottom of your post - I don’t know? Do YOU need a doctor? I find that in some situations a diagnosis is very helpful. In other situations it is not. And of course there are questions about accuracy and timing of a diagnosis. If you’ve strained a ligament or tendon…???

I believe a student willing to make change and heed the dialogue between issue and brain can help themselves to heel. That is support the body’s innnate healing process with nutrition and lifestyle changes in addition to proper rest, meditation, asana, and pranayama.