Here on January 5th, 2014, I am pictured back in the saddle on my lovely mare “Jewels” to start my new year off on a good foot so to speak. Farther down the blog is a video of me riding. I will step back for a moment and give the details of my journey up until this beautiful day beginning on 12-19-13 after I came back from a wonderful trip to Seattle and seeing my surgeon Dr. David Gent.
12-20-13 – Appointment with my chiropractor, Dr. Sheldon, Dwyer Chiropractic Office. Since my surgeon said my foot could be manipulated and adjusted, I had Dr. Sheldon specifically check my mid and forefoot bones as my rearfoot bones were in alignment and no longer needed any adjustments like all the times gone past. Sure enough, Dr. Sheldon found a subluxation of my left foot superior 2nd cuboid. This part of my foot was stuck and stiff due to the prior casts. With this one adjustment, I had an immediate improvement in overall foot pain from that day forward. My foot could now roll through better and push off at base of big toe. This also seemed to make it easier on my hip/groin during walking. I started to finally be able to walk significantly better than how I was doing when I had been back to see Dr. Gent in Seattle as discussed in my last update blog. While in Seattle, I was being affected with some pain during my walking in my left hip/groin area at the specific location where the Psoas muscle attaches.
12-23-13 – A physical therapy appointment at a local clinic in Lewiston to help me when I cannot get to my regular therapist in Post Falls 2 hours away. Joanna Alford, MPT with Peak Performace Physical Therapy worked specifically on my lower leg, foot and ankle only. She took good care for detail and mobilized the soft tissue of my entire foot along with extensive ROM exercise for the ankle. Her therapy complimented what the chiropractor had done a few days earlier.
12-25-13 – See “What Christmas 2013 Means” for the spiritual side of this medical journey. By Christmas Day, the pain in my groin area had subsided and my foot was motioning better in stride. This groin pain was probably more related to my prior non-weight bearing as compared to just post HyProCure Surgery symptoms. Here is my youtube video taken on Christmas day showing me walking and how happy I was to be doing so.
12-27-13 – My first good massage since coming back from Seattle. Julie French, LMT is very thorough and well trained on feeling adhesions in muscle tissue. I don’t know where I’d be without her. She certainly adds to the success of my physical therapy. She has helped me for almost a full yearnow after each one of my prior surgeries. On this day I also enjoyed my wonderful new Christmas present. Another chiropractor friend had recommended the Therasage Instant Calmer Infrared Heating Pad with Jade Stones. (Click on the photo to enlarge) Here is a link to the product description and cost.
12-31-13 – I had passed the 6 week mark since surgery and I was having another physical therapy appointment at Pinnacle Physical Therapy this day with my main therapist, Mark Bengtson, MPT. After using stretch bands to work the ROM of the ankle, I was able to accomplish very good stretching on my Soleus/Achilles using a slant board along with my regular exercises to upper thigh, hip, Glutes. To be able to walk correctly, it takes strengthening to the upper leg and not just the lower leg/foot/ankle. Mark is very comprehensive to take care for all the details pertaining to walking. I demonstrate many of Mark’s specific exercises from the Postural Restoration Institute guidelines in several of my prior blogs. See my home page for all my blogs.
However, the specific pain near the scar on the lower lateral foot just in front of the fibula bone is what would be specific post HyProCure symptoms along with the bio-mechanical changes in the foot affecting my gait pattern. This point of pain would flare up with the increased amount of walking due to inflammation and still to be expected at this 6 week mark. Each week as the level of swelling was decreasing, so were my sensory nerve symptoms on the top of my foot. By this point also, the sensory symptoms (numbness, rubbery feeling of skin) that occur from the surgical incision near the Sural nerve branches had recovered significantly.
1-3-14 – This was the first day that I went outside to clean my horses stall and I had to walk on gentle slopping terrain pushing the wheelbarrow out to the manure pile. I was wearing a pair of rubber Muck boots. I was exceedingly excited to not feel the pain anymore in my foot/ankle that I had constantly felt back in Aug. 2013 For me this is a milestone of achievement in healing as I had missed 4 full months of my normal chores.
1-5-14 – While the eastern half of the country was in a deep freeze, we were enjoying sunshine and just above freezing temperatures. I called my horse trainer, Dr. Hans and I asked him to do a special favor in coming over on a Sunday since the weather was so conducive to a good ride. He came and warmed my horse up so I could safely get on her for the first time since Labor Day, Sept. 2013. At 7-weeks since surgery, what a joy to be back in the saddle! My ankle hurt so much less than how it had felt at the beginning of September 2013 before the MRI had revealed a fracture in addition to the prior chronic subtalar joint mal-alignment . He assisted me to get back off the horse so I would not land on my foot to hard. My ankle ligaments are still healing and adjusting to their new correct alignment as I do have moments of weakness. However, I could take full pressure down through my ankle/foot in the stirrup and it did not hurt me to keep it in constant dorsiflexion for the 15 minutes or so of riding that I did. A simple 2 minute or so video clip of my fun ride with some music this time:
1-7-14 – Another P/T appointment with Mark. He worked my upper leg/hip/glutes very thoroughly. I did extensive stretching on lower leg. He commented that my walking was definitely showing great improvement and that my foot was healing well.
1-9-14 – P/T appointment with Joanna again. Since she hadn’t seen me in 2 weeks since her last appt. with me on 12-23-13, she commented on the tremendous increase of range of motion and the overall increase of flexibility of my entire foot. After her manual therapy, we started toe raises which helps to work the calf muscles and stretch/plantar flex the foot. Toe raises were something that I could barely do even in my pool back in August. And now to start doing them barefoot holding on to bars with my full weight and extending straight through my toe alignment while not falling out over the lateral part of my toes was another milestone of achievement for me. I simply could not do this exercise at all in the prior years due to all the weakness down my entire left leg with the prior SI Dysfunction, Proximal Tib-Fib Dysfunction, and prior chronic subtalar joint mal-alignment. Joanna also commented, ” I am impressed with the HyProCure Surgery in that it eliminates the rearfoot dysfunction/hyper-pronation/mal-alignment with out causing secondary problems in the rest of the foot.”
1-10-14 – A mile marker of recovery – 8 weeks since my HyProCure Surgey.
1-11-14 – This was my first day of purposely walking to just walk other than normal walking of daily life and chores. I accomplished a mile walk with an average rate of 2.5 with bursts of speed up to 3.4 per the GPS. I came in the house and iced my ankle and had no residual pain of the surgical area of my foot. I was able to walk again the next day for half a mile as I was a little stiff in my whole body due to so much non-weight bearing during the past year. My Infrared heating pad took care of any muscle tightness/spasms in Glutes and lower leg muscles. I highly recommend the Therasage Brand Infrared Heating Pad. I use it daily. For me, it works so much better than rice heat packs.
I close this blog with great excitement at the remarkable ability of my body to recover again from this HyProCure surgery in addition to the 4 prior surgeries of this lower leg and left ankle/foot. See my www.fibularpain.com for all my prior Proximal Tib-Fib joint blogs. See this link for beginning of my subtalar joint and ankle blogs. See this link for my Peripheral Nerve Surgery Blogs of my left lower leg and foot. And of course, my successful Sacroiliac Surgery which is the foundation of this entire website can be seen at this link .
Every one of the surgeries I’ve had over the past 3 years, has put the puzzle of my joint instabilities back together and helped heal associated pathology. This HyProCure Surgery is certainly the icing on the cake. It is my opinion that we patients should eat the icing first as a preventative surgery before so much dysfunction sets into our bodies due to the instability/partial dislocation/hyper-pronation of the Talus over the Calcaneus bones of our feet. After all, these bones take the full weight of your body and if they are not in true neutral alignment, guess what, neither is the rest of your body. A body that is not in neutral is being stressed in the entire muscle-skeletal system. Now looking back, I can see that my feet did play a role in my SI Dysfunction; however, I did have falls on my pelvis over the years of my sporting activities that affected the SI Joints more directly.
My current goal is to enjoy the next 6 weeks and become as strong as possible before I have the HyProCure Surgery done on my right foot. I am looking forward very much to having it done to be balanced as there has been more compensation going on in my lumbar spine segments with the millimeters of height difference in my two feet with the excessive pronation of my right foot and collapse of the Sinus Tarsi while my left foot is happily in neutral. I just want other patients to know that this may happen to you also. My HyProCure Surgeon normally does both feet in all of his cases and I now know and understand the rationale. I will update again soon.
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