Flashes of Panic

Around lunchtime today, I drove across under the shoulder of Bull Hill, an arm of the Mt. Toby range (which is, I should add, absolutely stunning in orange and yellow right now,) through Leverett and into the back roads of Shutesbury. (Who am I kidding—Shutesbury is all back roads.)

I did this because I had an appointment with a particular podiatrist, one who is apparently so good that he teaches in Boston most of the week and has office appointments on Wednesday only, in this corner of the Pelham hills. He also doesn’t bill insurance, which simplifies things tremendously even if it can be somewhat expensive. Despite these hurdles, this was the earliest appointment I could get when I called in mid-September.

I laid out my injury history, these rounds of PF plus the iliotibial band syndrome from early 2003, the rolled ankles in early 2000 and late 2001, the ITBS from early 1999 and the weird ankle problem in 2000 which was supposed to be a fractured or dislocated navicular bone (but wasn’t.) With that data, plus an examination of my feet, ankles, knees and hips both loaded and unloaded (that is, with me standing up and lying down) he came to the following conclusions:

(1) Inflammation of my plantar fascia is a secondary symptom; my real problem is damage to the muscle which pulls my big toe, which is under the plantar fascia and slightly higher up my arch. Since I have a pretty long, bouncy stride (“miler’s stride,” one coach called it,) this is a pretty serious problem. (If I was a horse, they might have shot me by now.)

(2) This, and most of my previous injuries, is due to my tendency to hit the ground with the outside (lateral side) of my foot. As my un-even foot rocks in to meet the (relatively) even ground, it twists my foot into a more pronounced pronation (roll towards the inner or medial side) than I would normally have. This in turn puts a greater load on my big toe at toe-off, which leads to the inflamed PF and injured muscle. This is called a “forefoot/rearfoot varus abnormality” and it is apparently relatively common despite the name. He showed me how he thought this led to the ITBS and how it would also heavily load the navicular bone and possibly, eventually, dislocate it. (My navicular bones are preternaturally prominent on the medial side of my feet, once leading my father to exclaim, “What is wrong with your feet?!?”)

The solution, as it always seems to be, is orthoses: inserts for my shoes which essentially allow for my tilted feet to strike the ground squarely. He made them on the spot, and I feel like I’m going to roll out of my shoes now. However, if he’s right, once the inflammation is gone—and I hope the acupuncture will help with that—I should be able to start in running again.

Obviously, as long as my feet still hurt, I’m still not running. But this is the first of the many people I’ve described this problem to who has come up with a theory for why they hurt, and tried to address that cause, instead of simply starting me down a pre-ordained regimen for making them stop hurting.

Now playing: When I’m Here from This Town Is Wrong by Nerissa & Katryna Nields