Fitness Files: Grateful for small steps toward being pain-free

I’m a reader who likes a story with a good ending, an epilogue and then to top it all off, an interview with the author.

Physical injury stories don’t always have tidy resolutions, but sometimes you take what you can get.

My troublesome heel doesn’t hurt anymore. Awakening for a nightly potty trip, I expected to scream when my heel hit the floor. Instead, now it’s just my normal sleepy stumble to the bathroom. Funny what I’m thankful for.

I’m also grateful for:

1. Swiss Clinique foot manipulation, massage and exercise apparatus designed to stretch tendons and break up inflammation.

2. Going to the podiatrist and getting an intricate heel taping, including layers of tape on the heel and a pad at the arch. I kept it on six days as the doctor ordered, cutting it off carefully to study the doctor’s taping technique.

I left the podiatrist’s office with materials needed to retape, but it’s been four weeks and I haven’t. Didn’t want to continue showering with a plastic bag held with a rubber band around my ankle.

3. A friend whose personality combines brainy engineer with imaginative artisan handed me Dr. Stephen Barrett’s book “Heel Pain.” Leafing through, I felt queasy at surgery photos and closed the book. “Read it,” my friend demanded. Barrett recommends pinpointing an exact diagnosis that leads to specific treatments. If acute pain returns and persists, I will request an ultrasound and pursue the book’s advice.

4. At my brother’s insistence, I tried newfangled running shoes with 3-inch high soles. Turns out my whacky left foot hangs over the side, causing danger of a twisted ankle. Back to my trusty Asics.

5. I thank the reader who called to describe his acupuncture cure. I haven’t tried it yet.

6. The knees twice injured cut me down to a hobble. Ibuprofen got me through. So I disciplined myself to stick to 1,200 mg a day. Heel pain diminished and then disappeared. I’m not a pill taker, but when inflammation reaches crippling proportions, an anti-inflammatory is in order.

After six days, I cut back to 800 mg. I’m taking 200 mg now. That means I bite a long slender 200 mg pill into thirds. Yes, we have a pill cutter, but I’m in the kitchen and pill cutter’s in the bathroom.

I got back on the trail for an exhilarating 12 miles beside Evie, a positive force of nature. Overcast with a hint of a breeze, ideal running weather, we ran 12 miles at a 10 1/2-mile to 11-mile pace. Being out in the air, breathing deeply, observing snowy egrets alight on the river rocks and hearing honking geese overhead made me grateful to be alive.

Heel pain lurks in the background. I look forward to my next dose of Ibuprofen. I’m not planning to stay on 200 mg of anti-inflammatory indefinitely. However right now, I can walk painlessly and take a good Saturday run with a friend.

Not a tidy ending but good enough for now.

*

Epilogue:

Weekend wedding in Ashland. Between the Swiss breakfast festivities, Puerto Rican lunch celebration and fantastic wedding and chuck wagon dinner, including beer and a tiny bottle of cinnamon Fireball liquor, I forgot all about Ibuprofen and the heel feels fine.

Newport Beach resident CARRIE LUGER SLAYBACK is a retired teacher who ran the Los Angeles Marathon at age 70, winning first place in her age group. Her blog is [email protected].