I’ve been suffering with chronic plantar fasciitis since August of 2014. I’d let it go for six months before visiting him the first time and receiving a cortisone injection. This had helped for a few months, but the pain returned in earnest when I began running again. I waited another three months before getting my second cortisone injection, which didn’t touch the pain. I’d written to him last fall wondering about what we might try next and received a link to a website describing a procedure known as ‘tenex’. After reading over the information, I called some people and looked at other options. There were essentially three and I was in the office with Mark to determine which of the three I would be doing.
“I can do a whole blood injection whereby we extract your blood, centrifuge it down to get the platelets and then inject the healing platelets back into the injured area. It’s painful, not covered by insurance, and has about a chance of working,” he said.
“Some people cut the plantar and just leave it that way. I won’t do that, but it is an option. What I have been doing and getting about 75-80% success in the tenex surgery.”
He described a procedure whereby he used ultrasound imaging to determine the location of the injury. Following a small incision, he would work with a tool that would deliver ultrasonic energy to the damaged tissue and slowly scrape it away.
“Then I close you up and put you in a boot for the next four weeks. You can walk and work in it, but you won’t be exercising. After that, we have a slow recovery over the next two months with lots of icing, stretching, and every evening in a night splint. After 90 days, we’ll know if you’re healed,” he said.
“And if I’m not?”
“Then I go in and cut it out,” he said.
Convinced this was the best course of action, I scheduled surgery for March 23rd and began to imagine how I would perform my duties, which typically included some 11,000 steps per day, for four weeks with a walking cast. Well…I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. For now I know that I cannot go on with a heel that won’t allow me to do normal walking, let alone hiking with a fifty-pound pack for hours on end. My lifestyle, which Mark and I are determined I should return to, does not allow for that result.
I did manage 16,000 steps for the day, though a bike ride was in order. The temperatures reached into the low sixties, but the doctor appointment kept me from having the time necessary to get in a worthwhile ride. I hiked instead with Kimberly and her daughter, Kennedy. Spring is in the air though, and I’m aching to take those longer rides. I will be missing the birthday ride though, unless I can come up with a way to ride with the walking cast.
Hike Duration: 60 minutes
Training Heart Rate: 75 bpm
Calories burned: 350
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