Foot pain
I am a runner. I injured myself (tendon and ligament damage from knee to ankle) when I was younger. They never really said more than this for the diagnoses and “rest” was the answer. I started racing 2 years ago and had similar foot pain. I continued to run through the pain and that resulted in a stress fracture of the navicular. I finally got back into racing again and after finishing a half-marathon recently, I am having similar pain. I don’t think that it is a stress fracture, but I think that it is ligament related. I have pain on the outer foot and have slight swelling with a visible bruise under my pinkie toe. I also have pain on the inside foot to my big toe. This results in pain in my arch and I have noticed some dropping of the arch. Because both of these ligaments are sore, I also have pain on the outside of my Achilles and up my calf. I am currently seeing a sports physician but I live in Bermuda so things are slow. I don’t want to be told “rest” again as this is only short-term help and once I start competing at maximum levels the pain returns. Basically, I want to know what my options are and what I should ask the doctor. Thanks for any help you can give me.
2 comments
viv
thanks for the information. I have realtivel high arches and I have laways trained with Asics. I presently have just switched to the high-end Kayano shoe from the Asics 2080. I do not pronate at all and have very good form (lots of training when i was young). After my injury 2 years ago, I have backed off in how hard I train. I only run 3 times a week and usually my workouts are speed (anywhere from 3-7 miles), average (4-7 miles) and long (8-16 miles). Otherwise, I mountain bike, kayak, skateboard, windsurf, swim and do yoga on the offdays with at least 1 day a week complete rest (not including walking my dogs). I just turned 30 so I know that healing is slower (or that is what everyone keeps reminding me), however, I would really like to keep up my running as there is nothing like a runner’s high!!! I will ask my doctor about plantar fasciitis. The only question that I have is I thought that pain in the heel was exhibited with this and I don’t have that.
bburgemast89
Upon examination of your foot has the physician told you whether or not you are flat feet, normal arches or high arches? As far as the pain that you are feeling in the medial aspect of your foot down the longitudinal arch of your foot is what they term plantar fasciitis which is a inflammatory response brought about by pain within the plantar fascia which connects from your heel to the balls of your feet and helps maintain the integrity of the medial longitudinal arch the same place where you complain of pain. Rest is important but also you need to look at the biomechanics of your feet as I ascribed to earlier and you need to look at the shoes you are running with ie; are they appropriate for your foot mechanics. You also need to look at stretching not only the plantar fascia with the use of a towel at the balls of the feet and stretching but also stretching the calves specifically the soleus and the gastrocnemous. If you have tight calf muscles this will cause you to put undue stress on the plantar fascia which will again create an inflammatory response. You need to evaluate your training as well. If you are anything like my self an avid triathlete then you probably might be training to hard with not enough rest between hard/long workouts.