Yesterday was my second follow-up appointment with my podiatrist. It was a good appointment, but I should explain my Physical Therapy appointment first.
Therapy was at 8 AM. I got there about 40 minutes early, so I hit the cross-trainer for some cardio first. I ended up going 20 minutes at 190 strides per minute. It was far from easy, but I really needed to push myself. My ankle hurt, but not too much. The range of motion on the cross trainer isn’t that large. I then proceeded to do all of my leg work. I did the leg press, toe raise, and “running” exercises on the reformer. I also did lunges, squats, and step ups on the evil bosu. Then a few other balance and proprioception exercises.
Jamie, my therapist, also wanted to work on my stairs. See, I can’t go down them very well. I typically point my toe and land on the ball of my foot when coming down stairs. I explained to her that the inside of my ankle hurts when I do that. Honestly, I thought it was my deltoid. After some discussion and prodding, we located the source of the pain. It wasn’t the deltoid, it was the posterior tibial tendon. I had tendonitis. I had all of the classic symptoms: pain on the medial side of the foot, fatigue after minimal activity, and pain when rising on the ball of the foot. Jamie wrote a quick note to my doc and I took it to him.
So, at the doc’s I handed him the note. He read it and said that he figured that’s what I had. He said that dealing with this injury is like peeling an onion. Last time we treated the joint line of my ankle, as that was the most painful at the time. Yesterday, he gave me another shot to address the tendonitis. He gave it to me under ultrasound and did a great job. He hit the trigger point of the tendon exactly, as my the tendon fired almost immediately upon the injection of the med.
Today, my ankle feels about 80%. It’s not perfect, but it’s to the point were I can work on range of motion and flexibility much easier. I’ve very happy about that, although I think I’ll need another shot in a couple of weeks just to make it 100%.
I’m sad to say that I’ll be missing the 100th running of the Cincinnati Thanksgiving Day Race tomorrow. I was really looking forward to running it, but my ankle is nowhere near ready to run.
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