This is a follow up to my foot issue I mentioned in my last post. After very low key walking around on our California trip just this past weekend, it was very clear that normal everyday walking was not working for my foot. It got worse, I had the stabbing pains come back. Before I even got on the return flight home, I had a podiatry appointment lined up for the very next morning back in town. He agreed with the bone stress injury assessment from my PT. Pain is centered over the navicular bone, but the talonavicular joint itself is fine (no arthritis, good spacing). Some 4th and 5th metatarsal pain on top of my foot is probably due to my compensated walk. Most likely do to 1) overdoing it, 2) overdoing it on a sub par foot (this year major delay to ACL rehab and it effects are going to haunt me for a while), 3) my wonky tibial rotation making not so optimal angles in my ankle joint. They did x-rays which revealed a few odd bone things. Two are not associated with any pain - a broken off piece of the rear talus, and a floating bone fragment in my Achilles tendon (yep, no pain). One bone flaking area was near the navicular, but he wasn't sure if it was odd or just me. Going by a physical examination and my 6 week history of clearing OVER DOING IT TWICE, he decided not to do an MRI yet and suggested a walking boot for 3 weeks. I will return for a follow up in 3 weeks and hopefully be OKd to take it off. (Fingers crossed - I'm going to Hawaii in 4 weeks!) Of course I can't jump right into all my hiking and running like I was or even hop on some cross country skis the very next day. It's going to have to be a gradual reentry to using my foot post-boot. Key will be not to over do it again while in Hawaii. I sure hope this calms down the bone and the plantar fasciits too. In the X-ray it also revealed a bone spur on the plantar. This could be why I get chronic PF as of late. Also it's a bit contradicting as some school of thought says that bone spurs do not contribute to pain. Many people have them on x-rays but report no symptoms or issues, so not all spurs will lead to pain. I sill think my PF is from overloading it too quickly. Then throw in my recent foot stress, my gait is affected and I'm just keeping the PF unhappy. The lifting has been pretty inconsistent for a while now due to the series of hiccups (rib fractures, costochondritis, vacations, plantar fasciitis, now the walking boot). Tonight I will go to the gym to see how well these sitting machines work with the boot. I know my gym has an arm bike so I will try that out. I need to assess how the handles work because for my TFCC rehab protocol the wrist needs to stay in neutral position. Knowing how my body works with all this deconditioning, I definitely will not jump into 30 minutes. Probably try 10 min and see how it goes the next day. Then I have several sitting/walking boot chair workouts already saved on YouTube! I hope a combination of these cardio videos, plus my sitting machines at the gym can keep things going for the next 3 weeks. Of course the TFCC has it's own hour+ long rehab protocol, maybe I'll beef up the core exercises too.
Already counting the days left... 21....20.... Hopefully this will be an easy hiccup!
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A month ago today, while playing yard games with the nieces and nephews, I over did it big time. I performed fast starts and stops while running, something I have not gotten to in rehab. I did it for hours. Upon waking the next day, I felt like I had a broken foot which lead to limping for several hours. I played the game again, but more gently. It seemed to resolve a bit over the next 2 weeks.
The 2 weeks after "the games," I had my 1000th Day Recovery Hike down the desert river. It was taxing on the feet and ankles. Most of us had sore swollen feet by the end. I was constantly adjusting my shoe tightness so that A) it hurt less on my foot, B) I also didn't lose a shoe in the quicksand by not having it on tight enough. I was limping the last 10 miles of the 38 mile hike. Different shoes than my normal hiking shoes. A week after this big trip, I wore clogs to work; in hindsight were probably way too tight for my still swollen feet. I woke up everyday of the following week with a pretty significant limp that was caused by stabbing pains on top of my foot/near the ankle. There is another location of pain too. It seemed to calm down a little from that week of limping, but my foot still feels swollen, different, tender, and that night aching is still there. I did manage to run a few days ago on a day I woke up with out limping, maybe it was too soon. I wrote to my PT to describe everything above but in more detail. He thought this sounded like a mild "stress reaction" which is a precursor for a stress fracture. It is a bone stress injury, bone becomes inflamed. It's caused by over doing something (too long or too repetitive) when you are under prepared for it. He thinks the extra time on my feet (aka backpacking) after the initial incident is dragging out the recovery. Before contacting a podiatrist, he suggested for the next 2 weeks get back into some low impact work (bike, walk, swim - possibly light jog only if pain free when walking) before making any decisions since things are still recent. Diagnosis of a stress reaction is usually with an MRI. Yes, I've been reading anything I can on stress reaction. Sounds like you really don't want it in your navicular. |
AuthorA 45 year old active female who tore her ACL in January 2017 (at the age of 40). Reconstructive surgery in February 2017 with bone-patellar tendon-bone autograft. Archives
November 2022
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