diagnosis

[anotheranon]

After a recurrence of my foot weirdness, I decided to nip things in the bud and go to an orthopedist.

Surprise (or not)!: plantar fasciitis. Happily the practice does a lot of sports medicine so their recommended treatment isn't "stop doing that".

I do need to take a break though, and would be taking tonight off if I didn't already have a lesson scheduled. As it is I'm taking ibuprofen and icing my feet before I go in late and will do more ice when I get back. I will [wince] not fence Sunday :( And much as I want to compete this month I'm going to hold off until I've got at least a couple of physical therapy sessions under my belt (1st appt. on 6/11).

The doctor's opinion is that foot exercises and anti-inflammatories/icing might help things; failing that I can change shoes or get custom orthotics - the x-rays evidently showed no abnormalities like bone spurs or the like. He was efficient and confident that this is fixable. I'm just glad I'm catching this now rather than waiting for things to get really bad.

But I'm going to be a bit cranky until I can get back up to my regular fencing schedule...

Comments

[ex-idragosa.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I'm having some issues with my left foot, mostly in the arch area... wonder if it's the same thing. Oddly enough, my foot hurts the most right after I get out of bed in the morning or if I have been sitting for a while and get up. If I am up and walking around on it, I am fine after maybe 30 seconds of painful walking. In fact, I spent all day Tuesday chasing pre-schoolers around the National Zoo without difficulty.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

If you look at the link, it mentions that a lot of patients have their worst pain in the morning. You might want to have it looked at.

[ex-idragosa.livejournal.com]

I will, thanks!

[dreamtigress.livejournal.com]

Get yourself a good foot massage (or four. or ten.) from a licensed therapist who knows how to deal with plantar fasciitis. That's what made mine stop attacking me with pain. I also would rub my arches myself before bed, and made sure to stretch out before stepping out of bed in the morning.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

I've been rubbing my own arches, and massage might be part of the physical therapy - not sure yet. At any rate, I'm going to give myself a pedicure this weekend and massage will definitely be part of it!

[margorose.livejournal.com]

I had PF for several years. What I found helped was to freeze a small bottle of water, put it on the floor and roll it under my arches. I also gave up wearing flipflops, Birkenstocks, and any sandals or slip on shoes without a back strap.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Oooh, I'm doing the frozen water bottle thing - it is most excellent :)

Glad to hear it's only sandals that I'll have to give up - I don't wear them often much anyway!

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Glad to hear that your prognosis is good (being body-aware and noticing/catching things early always pays off)

Maybe you can substitute fencing on wheels ... both parties strapped into rolling office chairs and have at it! ;p

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

There is such a thing as wheelchair fencing (http://www.paralympic.org/release/Summer_Sports/Wheelchair_Fencing/), but my condition isn't that dire - I just need to rest a bit.

And yeah - though I wasn't in a lot of pain I thought that going numb was enough of a warning sign to look at it now rather than wait until things were really bad.

[jlsjlsjls.livejournal.com]

Knew about wheelchair fencing, but like you said, your condition isn't that dire.

But fencing based on the office chair scoot ... now there's a challenge! The unpredictableness of those 5 wheels that all have minds of their own, the risk of spinning round and round till you're dizzy if blades connect too hard (or miss entirely), and loads of other things that my warped little mind hasn't even thought of yet!

Or maybe with unicycles ... ;p