Happy Feet...Kinda

Some of you have watched the saga of me getting older and my body essentially punching me repeatedly in the face. My hip has issues. My feet have issues. My doctor constantly tells me I am too young to be in his office as often as I am (currently, I am still visiting him weekly for hip and foot issues, where he also gives me B12 shots to help with healing). Today is an update about my new adventures with the Graston Technique on my left foot (right foot had surgery in 2013).  It took about a year for my right foot to stop hurting post-surgery. On top of all of this BS, my right foot has once again started hurting (so I only got about four or five months pain-free with that foot). I guess when you mess with your alignment, it can cause other issues.

So the left hip started randomly giving me trouble about five years ago (no injury to blame it on). I saw Keith and he got me back into a place where I could live relatively pain-free. After starting that new job in San Francisco in 2012, and going from wearing flip flops every day to real shoes, my right foot started really hurting. After having surgery and limping around in a moon boot for awhile, my left hip flared up again but I just kind of ignored it. My doctor warned me if I didn't take care of it, I would develop arthritis, and he started performing myofascial release on that hip this year. It has been life-changing. (We don't even have to mention how my little fall in Vegas put me back months and I'm still paying the price for that with my tight toes.) Something my doctor mentioned at one visit was how the tightness in my foot was related to my tight calves. Interestingly enough, I had just started having the Graston technique performed on my foot and calf the same week my doctor mentioned this.

I am about six weeks in to having the Graston technique performed on my foot (about once a week, although the holidays have made that a little difficult) and I really do feel like it is making a difference in the pain in my feet. The actual technique can be kind of painful. I have these crazy knots in my calves. I have always felt like my muscles practically melted after gastric bypass. Losing weight that quickly just destroys your body. My theory is that when the muscles started coming back, they fused in weird ways. When I used to get Charlie horses in my calf, it would be the back of the leg. After gastric bypass, Charlie horses moved into this place in between my muscles, which was completely unreachable and never could be rubbed out.

Although I am certainly not yet cured of foot pain, on the weeks I have Angela work on me, I am in significantly less pain than on the weeks I haven't been able to make it in. I am continuing with my yoga in order to keep myself somewhat stretched out. I am also using the Bledsoe brace on my left foot to keep pressure on the fascia. It is frustrating to be going through this on my other foot, but I really do hope that, if I keep up the Graston visits, I may be able to avoid future surgery on that foot.

Got any tricks for foot pain? I'm open to trying almost anything! I have been throwing around the idea of trying acupuncture. That should be fun...I really love needles. Not.

Bone spurs on the right foot. The left foot has similar, although smaller, spurs

Awesome bruise after a Graston visit

Three Months Post-Surgery ~ #HealingVikingWarrior

I am now three months post-surgery.  In August, I had plantar fascial release surgery to get the fascia away from a bone spur in my heel.  

About bone spurs:  http://lolorashel.blogspot.com/2013/03/bone-spurs-calcium-heart-attacks-and.html 

About taking care of yourself when you have an injury:  http://lolorashel.blogspot.com/2013/09/september-blog-hop-beauty-body-wellness.html

Two days before surgery:  http://lolorashel.blogspot.com/2013/08/surgery-is-in-two-days.html

Recovery has gone like this:  Month one: no activity.  I didn't work, I didn't work out.  I did a few stretches and things from my chair, or the floor, but otherwise, I was good.  Month two:  I went to Vegas and back to work wearing the moon boot still.  I was able to do a little more moving around but I still couldn't really do much.  However, every day, my foot felt a little better.  Month three:  Started back to pole, yoga and spin.  Recovery stops cold.  No better, no worse.  :-/  

I'm really a couple of weeks past my third month check-up.  I am working hard to get the swelling down in my foot.  My doctor said MOST people recover fully in three months.  Of course I'm not most people!  I'm definitely not in pain like I was before surgery, but I'm not out of pain either.  And my other foot hurts from bearing extra weight while I limped around.  Plus, my left hip is now hurting again (that's my old injury from a few years back), and my right lower back is out of whack.  It's very frustrating.  

I'm technically not supposed to be barefoot, so I will be wearing tennis shoes to pole.  Super hot, I know.  And I will carefully continue with yoga and spin.  I am still stretching and doing exercises to strengthen my calves and stretch them out as well.  My doctor said I have higher arches so it actually makes sense that it is harder to relax the fascia since it is pulled tighter.  I still have to tape my foot if I'm barefoot (which still isn't recommended EVER...I should literally have slippers with inserts by my bedside so even when I wake up, I'm in shoes) or if I'm wearing flip flops (also not recommended, except that I bought the $70 Othaheels that are slightly okay in my doctor's eyes).  I still have to roll my foot on the ball to massage it and ice it when it's really bad.  I am also drowning myself in Epsom salt baths and taking aspirin and Aleve (a big no-no post-gastric bypass). 

It is all so time consuming, expensive and frustrating.  Surgery definitely wasn't the quick fix, easy answer (I've been there before).  But I do appreciate that I am in less pain and am hopefully still moving in the right direction.

I took some photos of my healing journey (duh, have you met me?).  Enjoy some photos from the #healingvikingwarrior series.

Swelling in the right foot

About an inch difference in my calves

Probably one week post-surgery (they put a tube all the way through so there's one on the other side too)

Laying around after surgery

Leg lifts for exercise

I think that's a muscle

Post-surgery adventure (EDD actually required me to go pick up a form so my sister-in-law drove me and we made a stop)

How you carry stuff when you are on crutches

Hey my pants won't stay on

Getting better

More stretches and exercises with the surgical boot on

Upgraded to the moon boot

San Francisco adventure on the scooter...two peas in a pod

Moon boot fashion

The ink is almost gone (I seriously scrubbed even though I wasn't supposed to)

Exercising

Ink is gone, finally!

Icing

More exercising and stretching

I used to have rock hard calves!

Stretching

Only a tiny scar (matching one on the other side of my foot as well)

The size difference isn't as noticeable.  Don't tell my doctor I wore these shoes.

Back on the pole!

Dressing up as Candy for a photoshoot

Aerial Hammocks/Yoga

Fly Gym stretch

Yoga at Grace Cathedral

Twirling on a Bone Spur

When I started this new job in San Francisco, I started walking a lot more.  I walk to BART (our subway/train system).  I walk to work.  I walk around work more than I did at my old job.  I walk to lunch.  I walk back to BART.  I walk home.  A few months before I started this new job, I hyper-extended my knee in a yoga class.  It was a little bit painful but I just kind of limped around and ignored it for awhile, then went to see Keith (you can read about how I connected the dots HERE).  Keith gave me some exercises and my knee pain went away but the foot pain was becoming increasingly worse.  After a partciularly painful weekend, which included a numb heel, I made an appointment with a podiatrist.

A lot of the advice he gave me was the same or similar to Keith's.  I had already picked up the shoe inserts (although he suggested a different brand than the ones I bought).  Stretches.  Rock tape for the arches of my feet.  The Strassberg sock (right, and all of this stuff costs money, you know, because I'm rolling in it these days).  Rolling my foot on a frozen water bottle.  But here's the kicker...no barefoot dancing.  What?!  THAT is how I dance!  This doctor basically said that I should have inserts in my freaking house slippers so that I have arch support from the minute I wake up.  I don't wear slippers!  I love to be barefoot! 

Also, I don't just have plantar fasciitis.  I have a bone spur in my heel.  It's pretty pointy and gnarly-looking on the x-ray.  I wish I had taken a picture.  He said he would actually call what I have plantar "fasciosis," because the plantar fascia essentially thickened around that bone spur.  He said the spur is probably something I've had for years and years. 

So, he tells me that getting back to the gym is good but no impact sports.  No running, no stairmaster, no squats or lunges, nothing that requires me to push weight through my heels.  Oh, well that leaves a lot for me to do.  I can do spin/cycling classes and yoga.  I can do water aerobics.  I can still do Twirly Girls (with a taped foot), but I have to be careful about stomping my foot down.  That probably means that Afro-Haitian dance, which is a lot of stomping, is out of the question for awhile.  But my dream of doing Half Dome again (hahah...not really, that hike almost killed me) is dead.  For now at least. 

I did go to Disneyland over the weekend and we walked A LOT.  I taped up my foot really well, put the inserts into my shoes and wore my good aerobic shoes.  I was in a lot less pain than I expected to be.  So, I am hoping with just a little bit of work, I can keep the pain under control.

I joined a brand new 24 Hour Fitness Super Sport that opened near my house.  I had hoped to get back into the swing of the early morning workouts but they changed the schedule and now their cycle classes start too late for me.  So, my plan is to get in there on Tuesday and Thursday evenings for cycle then yoga.  It will make for a long night, but I guess the alternative is sitting in front of the TV eating food.  It also means that I now have things to do after work Monday through Thursday.  I'm tired just thinking of this schedule but I need to make some changes soon or my weight isn't going to change and my pain isn't going to get any better.

Wish me luck!