Underfoot pain

dandelion said:

I ran a marathon on 30 September and recovered well for the first week
or so, but for the past few days have been dealing with pain on the
bottom of my foot, right where the plantar fascia meets the heel (or
on the outside, where the heel meets the foot/arch skin), it seems. It
radiates up the ankle a bit on both sides as well (but not the
Achilles tendon at all). I am tempted to write it off as plantar
fasciitis and treat it as such, but my past few runs-in (no pun
intended) with plantar fasciitis haven't resulted in this sort of very
localized pain at that exact spot and certainly not radiating up the
ankle at all; it's always been pain along the length of the fascia
itself. Suggestions/help/comments? Serious replies only please; I
don't give a damn about how well laid I am and what it has to do with
this issue, but I would like some feedback from other serious
athletes. Thank you.

Not sure what it is, but if your past few runs haven't resulted in any
pain, it might not be PF. Though, I'm not sure if PF goes up the ankles.
The reduction in pain might also be a bit misleading if you happen to
have reduced mileage and/or intensity in those few runs. You could try
massaging it with your fingers or by rolling a bottle under the foot.

Since your marathon was only 10 days ago, this might just be an
after-effect of that and hopefully, provided you don't overdo it, it
might just go away soon.

Good luck,
jobs

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

"dandelion" <[email hidden]> wrote

Quoted message said:

I ran a marathon on 30 September and recovered well for the first week
or so, but for the past few days have been dealing with pain on the
bottom of my foot, right where the plantar fascia meets the heel (or
on the outside, where the heel meets the foot/arch skin), it seems. It
radiates up the ankle a bit on both sides as well (but not the
Achilles tendon at all). I am tempted to write it off as plantar
fasciitis and treat it as such, but my past few runs-in (no pun
intended) with plantar fasciitis haven't resulted in this sort of very
localized pain at that exact spot and certainly not radiating up the
ankle at all; it's always been pain along the length of the fascia
itself. Suggestions/help/comments?

I haven't had that constellation of symptoms, but have had many diverse
injuries in the foot/ankle area. The general approach I've learned to take
is:

1) Don't run through it. If it hurts, scale back and find something that
you can do without pain. Pain signals that you're interfering with your
body's attempt to heal the thing. When you get a scrape, you don't run
sandpaper over it every day, right?

You might have to hike uphill on a treadmill, or switch to cycling for
awhile, or use some other aerobic contraption at the gym to get your aerobic
fix. Even swimming (heaven forfend!)

2) Don't take NSAIDS (aspirin/advil/naproxin). They suppress the
inflammation (healing) response and impair healing. Use ice (I've found ice
works better than heat on foot/ankle injuries) regularly. That really
increases healing rate and also helps with pain.

3) If backing off (or alternative exercise) and icing doesn't make a dent
in it after a couple of weeks, think about seeing a sports doc, podiatrist,
etc.

-- Dan

jobs said:

dandelion said:

I ran a marathon on 30 September and recovered well for the first week
or so, but for the past few days have been dealing with pain on the
bottom of my foot, right where the plantar fascia meets the heel (or
on the outside, where the heel meets the foot/arch skin), it seems. It
radiates up the ankle a bit on both sides as well (but not the
Achilles tendon at all). . . . .

Not sure what it is, but if your past few runs haven't resulted in any
pain, it might not be PF. Though, I'm not sure if PF goes up the ankles.
The reduction in pain might also be a bit misleading if you happen to
have reduced mileage and/or intensity in those few runs. You could try
massaging it with your fingers or by rolling a bottle under the foot.

Since your marathon was only 10 days ago, this might just be an
after-effect of that and hopefully, provided you don't overdo it, it
might just go away soon.

Good luck,
jobs

You may be having some tendon or tendon-sheath (synovium) related pain
-- very similar to PF but going up the heel without including the AT
sounds like what Ozzie calls "stirrup muscles" tendons -- things like
the anterior and posterior tibialis muscles, the flexor (and
extensor?) digitorum thingie muscles, and the flexor (and extensor?)
hallucis longus muscles. I myself am battling some pain in the "lower
outer" ankle-to-foot sheath area since breaking my fibula last year.
Ice after exercise helps (a bag of frozen peas). Massage helps --
that's why I'm responding under jobs' post really -- I would add that
the massage points have to be the belly of those little hard to
identify and hard to find muscles that are way up toward the meaty
part of the calf: between tibia and fibula on the outside and between
the tibia and the gastrocs on the inside. My assortment of massage
tools includes golf ball, tennis ball, baseball. You want to go hard
enough and deep enough to make the muscle relax / elongate but not so
aggressive as to cause bruising. Ice after massage doesn't hurt
either. Good luck!
--
Daniel ( [email hidden] )