Injured People Unite (and help cheer me up)

[CanIRunYet]

I'm currently unable to exercise much due to an injury. Had physio last week and he confirmed what I suspected from my vigorous googling - I've got a bad case of posterior tibial tendonitis. Likely caused by changing running shoes about a month ago, and increasing my pace a bit recently.

It hurts. Tendons take ages to heal. I'm sick of resting and icing this foot only for it to hurt again! I do miss running, and watching my running club upload their strava pics of Parkrun is giving me FOMO, but honestly, I just want to be able to walk a decent amount without flaring it up. I'm feeling pretty isolated as I need to really reduce my activity and even short walks hurt it. I've got several weekends away planned between end of Sept and Xmas and I'm getting worried I won't be able to participate much as I can't walk for long at all.

Anyone else currently out of action with injury and feeling a bit down as a result? Come forth and tell me about your injuries, recovery plans and how you're coping!

You have my sympathy! I have had tendonitis in my foot since February and have been unable to run. I have really missed it but have been walking, painfully to try to maintain some sort of fitness. A month ago I finally thought it was getting a lot better and I was so happy, then I broke my big toe three weeks ago, I am so fed up, especially as at my age (late 50's) it is really hard to regain your fitness.

So I feel your pain.

Oh no, @Clariana that's such bad luck! I've broken 3 toes in the past (thankfully on separate occasions, not all at once!) and its surprising how painful that can be, and you realise how much you use your toes for balancing and natural gait when pushing off the foot during walking. I hope you heal ASAP. Have they got the toes strapped together?

Did you have physio to help with the tendonitis? I've been told to do some heel raises with a tennis ball between my feet, along with some banded holds and things. At this point, its still incredibly volatile and flares up if I just walk a bit too much pottering about at home, so I'm scared to do the exercises in case I suffer even more! I know I should though, so will have to be brave!

@CanIRunYet - how are you getting on? I think I have this. It's so painful. My googling has terrified me as it seems like a really poor outcome. I have an appointment with a physio this morning but right now I don't think I could do any exercises.

@CanIRunYet - also where is your pain? Mine is largely in my arch and heel at rest but is a bit in the ankle when I move around.

Can I join? Currently feeling very sorry for myself with a couple of issues with my hip that have been going on for the best part of a year (and costing a fortune in various treatments ) and now have achilles tendinopathy. I used walk for miles without even thinking about it - now a 45 minute dog walk is so painful 😥

I’ve had tennis elbow a million times and now I have a torn tendon in my foot. I’m so pissed off 😭😭😭😭 I love sport and I do it for heath and for social reasons. I can go swimming but it’s not as much fun.

I’m just coming to the end of a two week break from workouts because of a strained hamstring. Erging, spinning and treadmill are the way I clear my head, so I can’t wait to get back to normal.

So the good news is that I've had posterior tendonitis issues and it's healed really well after some pretty bad weeks. I'm sure your physio has mentioned it, but add in some single leg RDLs (no weight initially then weights once you're comfortable) as single leg stability really helps. And if it's painful don't do much - fine if you can feel it but sharp pain above 3/10 needs to be respected!
The bad news is that I'm joining you as I've got a stress fracture in my foot. I'm feeling pretty low - I usually average 40-50 miles running a week plus around 5-7 miles a day of dog walking and school run walks, so to not be able to do anything is already stressing me out 😢

Ahh hello to all you injured people, welcome to the club that no one wants to join!

@garlictwist My pain is sort of below the knobbly ankle bit on inside of ankle, and then it can feel bad down to start of arch and up behind the ankle too. Apparently that's where that tendon goes, and it can get annoyed easily. I am working with physio and they've given me some exercises to do - for now, they said its likely quite acute in the first stages of healing so the exercises are predominantly to help alleviate pain - lots of isometric holds which have been shown to load the tendon as it likes and give pain relief (can attest that this works!). Once out of the acute inflammation stage (week 4/5 onwards) we'll do more eccentric work - already doing heel raises with tennis ball between ankle few times a day and that is helping a bit. I am 3.5/4 weeks with the injury now. Still haven't got ability to walk far or stand for long without it hurting but physio said this is an injury from repetitive use (running for me) so that capacity to walk/run comes after the strength comes back. Physio always keen to remind me these tendons can take 12 weeks to get back to normal, and will still need some TLC and specific exercise even once it feels better - slow progress!

@Anothercake Thank you so much! I have found it hard to find anyone with this injury! Did you find it took a while to get back to walking any length of time? Even the school run feels a bit niggly and achy for me at the moment!

@SirChenjins @CuteHANDBAG @LoserWinner Send you all good-healing vibes (please send some my way!). I totally get how frustrating it is - I never really classified myself as 'active' but without much option for exercise I realise I did rely on it quite a bit. Even during work I would walk slowly on my walking pad whilst doing emails etc and I'm not really encouraged by my PT to do that at the moment as he's keen for me to keep step count low to avoid flaring the inflammation at this point. I'm stuck doing weights workouts with a lot of movements modified to work around the gammy ankle!

Currently treating in our Nursing Clinic, a lady who dropped a kettle bell on her foot, broke it and has now got Cellulitis as a result.

Oh you poor thing @CanIRunYet .I had that and it was miserable. Mine was largely caused by glute weakness so lots of squats and clams helped for me.

I'm trying to decide if I'm injured at the moment... I have been getting very tight glute and back and so I went for a sports massage. I think the massage has pulled a muscle in my calf a bit (obviously it was the massage and not the 16km race pace run the day before!). It isn't painful, but feels tight so I'm trying to decide if I risk my last long run on it this weekend or whether I rest it and hope its fully better for the race... Argh so annoying!

@CanIRunYet yes walking pain free took a while. It's an annoying tendon because it likes support but doesn't like pressure on it! I found walking boots with the laces slightly looser than usual the best option. And then when running being careful not to be lazy with my technique i.e. not over striding, not letting knees cave in - plus a tonne of strength work in the background. And if I ran and it was a 1/2 out of ten I kept going gently (no hills or fast work), any increase and I stopped. Be particularly careful of pain the next day - often it will feel okish at the time and then worse than it should later on! So back off and listen to it. For me it was bad early February and took about three months I'd say to get back to proper running without thinking about what it was doing.

Thanks so much for replying - you're giving me hope @Anothercake ! I'm constantly wearing a pair of rather unflattering supportive trainers (like a stability shoe) and some insoles with arch support to give the tendon a bit of a rest. Agree with you re: laces - anything tighter round that area and it causes my ankle to ache so I've got shoes pretty lose. Praying for some pain-free walking by November/December and have decided to put the running on back-burner for a bit until sometime next year than really gently ease back in (basically because I'm a fair weather runner anyway who hates rain, and also because I'm now convinced I'll f*ck up some other area of my body and get injured again!)

I'm doing physio like it's my religion and am also focusing on strengthening glutes @Dokushozanmai as suspect mine is a weakness generally on that side. Banded clamshells, squats and (once ankle is a bit stronger) some heavy deadlifts on the agenda!

Jeez! It's enough to convince me to stay in bed and never exercise again!

@garlictwist how did physio go?

@CanIRunYet sending you heaps of good healing vibes back. I will never be smug or take my good health for granted ever again after this. I've always kept a healthy weight and been fairly active, believing that I would somehow be immune to this - but since hitting the menopause and hurtling towards 60, it's all gone pear shaped. Sending you all many sympathies and good wishes for a speedy recovery

At least you're not missing the summer runs... although to be fair I was reminiscing about freezing drizzle during the heatwave 😂

Femoral neck stress fracture at the end of April. Over 15 weeks on crutches THEN they decided to operate at the end of August. Back to the crutches. Finally off them and realising just how unfit I am now. No idea when I'll run again. It's been so much fun! Sympathies to all the injured peeps.

I'm on a very slow recovery path from frozen shoulder - I'm much better than I was but it's been over a year now and I still don't have full range of movement in my shoulder. Thankfully I can at least run pain free now but I am very limited in my strength training and it's so frustrating to have lost so much strength and not be able to do anything about it.

You have my sympathy. A few years ago I fractured my neck of humerus in four places, and it took over 18 months of doing my physio exercises religiously four times a day to regain the full range of movement in my shoulder.

Another week starting..... and another week with the bastard ankle! For small wins, I did find the school run was relatively pain free this morning so perhaps the physio is working albeit SLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWLY.

To rub salt in the wound, my knee on the injured leg feels irritated today. I suspect due to me walking a bit lopsided and odd for the month.

Hope everyone is doing okay!

Any tips for how to keep weight in check during this time? I'm barely able to exercise (cardio) and whilst I do some weights based workouts a lot of it is from sitting. My weight is already up a couple of lbs, and I could have done with losing half a stone or more before the injury!

I’ll come join you I’ve been struggling with pain:injury since May after slowing stopping running from 3x a week to twice to once to no running for 5weeks and trying to slowly build again. I think it’s actually arthritis in my hip as a scan has already confirmed I’ve got arthritis in my toe joint. I dislike lifting weights but it’s helping build strength and I’m now doing a slow trail 3-5k run/walk weekly plus daily dog walks. Mid 50s and I love running it really helps with stress in a way that cycling and swimming doesn’t, I even miss park run which I know I could walk but it’s not the same. Hopefully in time we can all rebuild

@AutumnHope welcome to the unlucky club!

I also miss parkrun too 😫 I can only walk very very short distances at the moment so no chance of even walking parkrun for a while for me sadly!

have you seen anyone about the hip yet?