Is it normal to hurt so long after a dog bite?

[ar_cummings]

While walking at the end of July, a pitbull bit my leg. It didn't tear my leggings, and didn't appear to have broken the skin in the beginning. A couple of days later, I had on jeans that rubbed off a scab and there was a little bleeding. Nothing major. It felt like being pinched. I called the sheriff's department and had to wait about 40 minutes for a deputy to arrive, but I declined an ambulance because I wasn't bleeding--outwardly, anyway. I think I was a litlte bit shocked by what happened and the pain wasn't awful. The swelling was immediate. I also had to walk two miles back to my car after leaving the deputy with a statement. :/

I waited awhile to see my physician since it didn't seem so bad, but by the time I finally got to him, the hematomas were very pronounced, the bruise was like 7 inches in diameter, and he thought I needed a round of antibiotics. At the time, the pain wasn't too bad. Until the swelling went out of it, about a week and a half after it occured. That's when I noticed not only the bite site hurt, but about four inches below it was crazy sore. I was training for a 5k prior to the bite, and I went back to it right away, kind of working through the pain. It didn't usually get bad until about two miles in, and I was mostly walking, but it's a pretty hilly road. The pain would kind of go away until I started resting and mostly, that's when it's the worst.

Now, at almost five weeks into the injury, the bruising is all gone, the hematomas are only noticable when my leg is extended, and all that's left to look at are two tiny teeth mark scars. The pain seemed to be getting a little better, except that when it's present, usually after I walk or I'm on my feet a lot at work, it feels like muscle spasms, or a getting prodded with a hot poker. Muscle rub doesn't help. Ice makes it hurt worse, and heat doesn't do much for it, although I wouldn't say no to one of those hot towels the pedicure people wrap around your calves. I can't tell for sure, but I don't think anything is swollen. Compared to how the same spot on my other thigh feels, it's a little squishy at the would area, but the muscles around it feel hard. Like they're constantly straining.

So I know it takes a long time to recover from traumatic muscle damage, but at any given time I'd say it hurts from a 3 to a 5 on the pain scale depending on what I've been doing. Sometimes it actually feels better if I'm up, standing on it, unless I twist the wrong way. And getting on my knees (I work in a library. Shelving kids' books on the bottom shelves is a nightmare anyway), trying to move around, forget it.

Do I call the doctor or suck it up? It might be all in my head, since it hurts worse when I'm resting. But it's enough to wake me up sometimes or it gets in my dreams that I'm hurting. Or maybe I just have a crappy work chair that's aggreviating it, because it gets kind of pushed up when I sit. I don't know.