RECOVERY
When Your Feet Hurt
Finding a new normal after injury takes time
What happens when every step hurts?
If the pain is ‘small,’ you keep walking. You try to make adjustments to accommodate the pain in your feet, but this doesn’t solve the problem.
You might start to drag your foot or leg. Or pick up your foot as you walk, instead of rolling your foot from heel to toe like it was designed to do.
Any adjustment you make throws the mechanics of your body into the unknown, moving in ways it was not mean to move.
Not rolling your foot causes tendons, ligaments, muscles, and bones to tighten, become less flexible. The less flexible the body becomes, the more painful it is to move.
Walking becomes laborious. Exhausting.
Your knees, hips, and back start to ache from having to drag your feet around.
You find yourself sitting more and moving less.
Take care of your feet
As a runner, I am guilty of not caring for my feet.
My feet took issue with this and revolted, giving me no choice but to pay attention to something I’d overlooked too long.
Plantar Fasciitis, Achilles tendon damage, bruised heel bones. Yeah, my feet were in bad shape. The worst part, besides the pain, was the limited mobility.
Even driving hurt, because it meant having to remove the orthotic boot I was wearing that was protecting my bruised heel bone, my inflamed Achilles tendons and plantar facia so tight my feet curled.
My life stopped. I didn’t want to go to dinner, the mall, a movie, anything because it meant walking. To walk meant pain, it meant dragging my body around and heavy breathing from the effort. It meant plopping my body down on benches, chairs, and retaining walls, anywhere I could sit to recoup, catch my breath, and get off my feet.
Recovery from any injury takes time. Recovering from foot injury takes more time because, for the most part, you still have to walk. You might ‘get lucky’ and get one of those fancy one-legged scooters, or crutches, but think of how either one of those apparatuses throws off the rest of your body, creating the domino effect.
I’ve spent so much time in physical therapy, I should have an annual membership.
I wish they offered stretching and massage as part of a wellness/prevention package. I’d be a lifetime member.
The number one thing I’ve learned from spending so much time in physical therapy is that I have to stretch. Several times a day even when I’m not exercising.
And several more times when I am. The time I spend stretching is part of my fitness program and included in how much time I spend exercising instead of only happening as a warm-up or cool down, both of which have also become an important part of how I take care of this body I’ve been assigned.
Massage is also important
Every night I massage my feet and legs. For awhile I was able to run my feet over frozen golf balls, something I hope to do again soon (because it feels so good). But as of right now my feet require a hands-on touch.
I’m able to work out the kinks and loosen the tight muscles, which helps me sleep better and, I’ve noticed, cuts down on the number of muscle cramps I get, the kind that have me leaping from bed in the middle of the night, gasping for breath as I try to unwind rioting muscles.
The stride is returning
Slowly. Every day I’m seeing little improvements. Those little things are adding up to bigger things. I’ve had to make adjustments and let a lot of things go, for now. Like my desire to get back to my ‘old normal,’ realizing I’ve got a new normal now.
Something that is working (tremendously well) for me is CBD Oil.
Topicals and Tinctures
The product I use as a topical is a full-spectrum oil, meaning it was made from Cannabis and has both THC and CBD and *all the other cannabinoids,* kept in a small jar next to my bed. I just tap my finger into the oil, enough to cover the pad of my finger or thumb and rub it in where it hurts.
One place where it’s doing wonders is a tight tendon on the bottom of my foot, at the edge of the ball of my foot before it slides off into my arch. This tendon is tight. When I roll my foot to walk, it ‘pops,’ and can become painful — which will make me adjust my stride, and causes back pain.
Massaging this tendon with the full spectrum oil relaxes it, and lets me walk normally without pain, without it ‘popping,’ all day. I’d been doing this morning and night for weeks, but as I write this I’ve realized I haven’t needed it in the morning for a few days now. (I’m still massaging it in at night to my feet, calves, and shins.)
It is also a near-instant muscle cramp reliever.
I’ve been using a Cannabidiol isolate as a tincture. I started by taking two drops and waiting for one hour before evaluating my pain and taking two more drops. For the first few days, I was taking two drops about every two to three hours.
After a few days, I could go three or four hours before ‘feeling the need’ for more.
Within about three weeks I had worked my way down to two drops in the morning and two drops at night. The daily stiffness of arthritis and Rheumatoid arthritis was so minimal I started chalking it up to exercise soreness.
The sciatica pain took longer. Sitting, standing, and stepping off curbs was still an issue, until one day, it wasn’t.
Seriously, one day, the pain was gone.
I went to step off a curb and thought, ‘oh no, here it comes,’ and readied myself for the shooting pain that didn’t come when my foot hit the ground. I literally stopped walking, turned to look at the curb to make sure I’d just stepped from one level to another, and, to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming or dead.
Keep Going
I know how hard it is to keep going when you’re in pain and how easy it is to give up and sit in your recliner all day. I do, I’ve been there.
After awhile even sitting and laying down hurts. And then what?
It’s been a long road to recovery, nearly five years since the first injury and there were days along the way that were hard, physically, and mentally.
Healing from injury takes time, trying new things in order to find a new normal, and learning to be patient with the process.
The biggest lesson I’ve learned about the body I’ve been assigned is to take care of my feet. I need them to take me all the places I want, and need, to go.
Creating the life of my dreams, one story at a time. www.nanciwrites.com
