Friday, January 21, 2011

January 2011 - The update

Its January 2011, and the year hasn't gotten off to the greatest start. In fact it is going about as well as 2010 ended, with me being injured, frustrated and wondering where do I go next, Do I think about stopping running and if so what do I do instead? Ever since the end of October I have been going to either Physio, Chiro, Acupuncture or Massage at least once a week. I've had so many treatments in the last couple of months that I should start up my own clinic. 


Sorry before you read any more, I feel I have to warn you that this one may go on for awhile :-)


Part of this frustrating thing about having Achilles problems is that there doesn't seem to be one treatment option that works and I think is due to the Achilles not really having a good blood supply, the only treatments that I haven't tried in the last couple of months are Plasma Rich Platelet Therapy (PRPT) where they inject the problem area with a dose of super concentrated White blood cells and platelets. This treatment is supposed to be really effective on the parts of your body that don't have a lot of blood going to them normally such as tendons and ligaments. The other treatment is Electro Shock Wave therapy and this one is exactly what you you think it is. The person being treated gets an electrical shock localized on the area that hurts and this is then supposed to help reduce pain and help healing. The other part of getting frustrated with it is that it not knowing if you can get back to the level you where at prior to being injured, no one can give me a firm date, no one can say that in 3 weeks you'll be back to your normal running routine. Which is what all athletes want to hear, we don't want to go week in week out for treatment with no end in sight. 


At my last Physio appointment I was cleared to start XC Skiing, so I did that and within two days I could feel a tightness in the Achilles. So this leads me to believe that whatever is causing it is not fixed.


This week I spoke to a family friend who happens to work with one of the NHL hockey teams to see if he would have any other ideas, he suggested everything that I've done up until this point so that was kind of good to hear but also disappointing as it meant that I will still be stuck for the next X amount of weeks. While farting around on the internet I came across a guy called Dr. Abelson down in Calgary that uses Active Release Techniques (ART) to help athletes over come Achilles injuries. So I watched a couple of his YouTube videos and then looked to see if someone in Edmonton also does this. Which landed me at the door step of River Valley Health, after explaining what was happening (my ongoing hip and lower back issues) as well as the tendinitis I got an adjustment that was very uncomfortable, since pretty much every muscle was tight from my back down to my feet. I believe and they also think that the Achilles tendinitis is caused by something going wacky further up on the kinetic chain...Meaning that its possible that my sore hip and lower back problems caused the lower leg injury due to it having to overcompensate. They also told me that they see this all the time and could have me back to my normal volume of running within six weeks.......When I heard this I was thinking, Awesome, but I'm not going to get too carried away just yet as who knows what will happen between now and then.


Next up is an appointment to see how good or bad my Gait is, I'm hoping that I can post the test as that would be cool. I think with this test its going to show that my gait is bad....since I'm injured and everything is out of place. what would be cool is if further video analysis over a period of time shows that the gait is getting better due to adding core stability workouts and having the problems go away without the use of Orthotics.