Foot Injury

sa said:

The outside middle of my left foot has been bothering me for about
six months, especially a couple of hours after runs where I kind of
hobble around the house. I thought perhaps I needed and orthotic and
the examiner suggested no running for three weeks but walking for an
hour should be ok as he suspected I had a small (tip of my fifth
metarsil broke). After a month with no improvement I went to my
doctor who sent me for an xray and the radiologists report
is.....there is an area of calcification at the base of the fifth
metarsil most likely due to an old injury. There is no evidence of an
acute fracture or other abnormality. There may be some marginal
degenerative change in the first MTP joint.

I'm 61 and have been a runner for over 30 years and have cut back my
mileage before injury to about 30 miles over 4 days a week combined
with two days of either exercise equipment or walking. Every other
week I was doing one two hour run. At any rate my doctor prescribed
apo naproxen 500mg once a day for what he hoped might reduce the
inflammation. I'm a very willing patient and was wondering from the
more knowledgeable on the site if this sounds like a good course of
action or there is anything else I might do to get me back fully on
the trails. He said running again was fine but it was dependent on my
pain threshold. thanks for any further insight

You waited. You gave it time to heal. Now go out and see what you can
do with it. Your doctor confirms that it is not major and won't hurt
you to run on. That's the best way to handle these unspecified
injuries. Wait a bit and then go.

I've personally never had any positive results from antiinflamatories,
but they work for some folks. They are not curing anything, just
getting you by until your body heals. And some doctors advise against
them.

Sometimes it's hard to separate the anxiety of old injuries from their
return. You can experience phantom pains from the site that don't mean
it's coming back. My motto is to go on it until you get a firm message
that you can't. With anything related to the foot, I always suspect
that the shoe plays a part in these things. Therefore, I always run on
different shoes when recovering from an injury. If I had to purchase
new shoes, I'd do it. You run enough that you will use them anyway.
Shoes are cheaper than doctors.