Friend w/ jacked-up foot
I have a friend in Chicagoland, that messed up his foot pretty good. I think it was due to him going from almost no activity to marathon in a very short amount of time. He didn't listen to advice (including from me) about it before trying, now he's regretting that.
I told him I'd ask you WSMs and WSMMs (wicked smart medicine members) about advice and you Chicagoland folks if you can endorse his doc.
Here's his summary:
had a nagging "ache" under the fifth med near the union of the met and phalanx bone starting in august on runs longer than 12-13 miles or so
it would go away over night which made me think it was nothing
jammed the piss out of that same toe 3 days prior to marathon, and likely hairline cracked the toe, obviously inflaming whatever was happening with the met
ran the (chicago) marathon anyhow
waited a month, ran a 15K, about 1.5 miles in actually fractured the phalanx, left side
at joint of met and phalanx
6 weeks in a boot, didn't get any better
3 rounds of x-rays, still fractured
I don't have any "pain" at the fracture, but there is a big "thing" under my forefoot that hurts like a mother if I try to run on it
you can move it around a bit, that hurts...
doc doesn't think it is a bone chip or fragment, he said it feels more like a bursa or something else, but that it is VERY odd to have them both at the same spot
If I hop on the bike, my foot goes numb from the stupid thing on the bottom, very annoying
He doesn't have any official latin-sounding diagnoses yet, but it scheduled for an MRI and ultrasound in the near future. Then most likely some sort of surgery.
Advice?
His doc is Dr. George Holmes, Midwest Orthopedics @ Rush, who he says is the team doc for the bulls and sox. I trust since he's a team doc, he is pretty reputable. Anyone ever heard of him, positive or negative?
Thanks in advance!
Comments
I had a very similar pain right after an oly race last year. It hurt so bad I couldn't run so I went to see a podiatrist. She had never seen anything like it but whatever it was, she defined it as 'palpable'. She gave me a shot that went right through the top of my foot and straight into that 'palpable' thing at the bottom of my foot. The shot was supposed to provide imediate relief and hopefully disolve it. Suprisingly, it did both. I wish I could be of more assistance to you but the podiatrist had no idea what it was, decided that a shot (a cortisone type shot) may do the trick.....and it did. This was back in October and I haven't had an issue since. (I'm knocking on wood as I type this)
The difficulty in assessing the above is that he broke his pinky toe,
So movement of the toe is limited and physical exam limited.
If the ortho doc ruled out fractures of the fifth meta tarsal and identified
The fracture site on the pinky toe, then soft tissue imaging should help in
Diagnosis. Good luck!