Monday, October 17, 2011

PT appointment


need to get a weekend recap up yet today or tomorrow but I thought I would give the readers of my blog a quick summary of my visit to see the PT today.  I thought I was going in to be fitted for orthodics, but apparently they had a different idea.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I am glad to see them taking a wide view when trying to figure out my problems.  I just wasn’t expecting what I got today.  We didn’t even really discuss orthodics – I left with 3 more appointments for PT.  One more appointment this week to “get me ready” for my half this weekend and then two more next week to help me “recover.” 

Apparently, I have Morton’s toe.  If this had been a few months ago I would have been clueless as to what this meant, but my classmate brought up this condition in class not long ago so I at least knew what he was talking about.  Basically, this means that my second toe is longer than my big toe – I have obviously known this my whole life but didn’t realize it could cause problems.  It’s actually not the toe itself, but the bone in my foot – so the metatarsal that leads to my big toe is too short.  Apparently the morton’s toe combined with the fact that my forefoot is out of alignment with my heel creates a problem when I run.  Apparently my ankle is doing a lot of abnormal twisting and rotating when I run to account for my “flaws.”   He said that basically I am overstressing the muscles in my ankles and that is likely causing the problem.  The overstressing is also causing the muscles in my legs, ankles, and feet to tighten up since I don’t stretch like I should.

In addition, The PT thinks I am in the wrong running shoes so I need to go to the running store again to hopefully talk to Eric about that.   So, anyway, the “game plan” is to go in these next three visits and get the tightness worked out of the muscles in my lower leg, ankle, and foot.  Then of course I am supposed to look into new shoes and then at that point we will look at the possibility of orthodics to correct things if I am still having problems. 

Keep an eye out for my weekend and race recap in the next day or so... 

1 comment:

  1. Hmmm - that is "funny" (coincidence kinda funny not ha ha funny) that JW had discussed it during class. Interesting. I have a LOT of faith in PT's - they are awesome at figuring out the real source of issues. Glad they were able to figure it all out! Interesting cascade of issues leading to your problem. Hope rehab can get you back in the game pain free.

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