The bane of my existence

[rob]

So I've been hitting the gym pretty hard the last 6 months and made some great progress. I've gotten to really enjoy working out at the gym.

Around the first of the year I started getting pains in my heels. This was a lot different than the normal soreness I'd get. I actually found that my left heel was numb (and the right is desensitized). When stretching the Achilles I felt intense pain.

Needless to say, I was concerned. Bilateral nerve issues implied back/spine issues. The symptoms also sounded like diabetic neuropathy. My Doctor sent me for X-Rays.

Here are the results:

Left Heel:

Right Heel:

Bilateral heel spurs of both the Achilles and Plantar...on each foot.

Have any of you have posterior heel spurs? Did you have them surgically removed? They seem like the ones to be worried about.

 

[Brano11]

I have very bad ones rob, but they dont bother me as of right now. I go through shoes quicker since my heal (heel spurs) rub much harder then the rest of the foot does.

I had discussed with my doctor about having them removed, and he recommended dont do it unless I absolutely have too. He said the surgery and recovery is a very painful and very long process.

 

[PRWraith]

What are the options for treeting this?

It doesn't look like the deposits have formed to big of a spurr yet but it's probably going to continue growth unless you've lost weight and switched to to strictly low impact training.

 

[rob]

Thanks, Brano. Everything I've seen points to the surgery as basically cutting your achillies tendon, fixing the bone, then reattaching.

The achillies is a horrible horrible thing. 6-9 month recovery time. Being in a cast for a few weeks, in a big boot for another month, etc. At this point, i'd take that over not being able to walk without intense pain.

PRWaith, i've lost 60lbs in the past 5 months or so (still have a lot more to go). I wasn't doing anything high impact, except an elliptical. The spurs may not be very big, but they are impacting the nerve reducing mobility and range of motion.

 

[PRWraith]

Oh no no. I certainly wasn't trying to assume or downplay the pain level just analyzing what I see.

If the pain is that bad I certainly wouldn't try and treat with medicine for the rest of your life for pain. If surgery is a feasible option for you as far as work and lifestyle I might do it if I had the issue. It really depends on whether or not I could be guaranteed recovery or whether other issues related to the surgery would crop up over the course of time.

 

[rob]

Well, I work from home 4 days a week. So it wouldn't be too much of an impact. I'd probably take 3-4 weeks of of work (i have 2 weeks of sick time and another 4 of vacation banked). Also, I didn't think you were downplaying, just observing. Sort of like a kidney stone.

The only things I know about the achillies is what I've read about it with sports medicine (eg: football players). In my daily life I do not actively side step chop blocks, so it is probably not a big deal, but definitely concerning.

 

[DT]

Honestly, rob, I would get it fixed as soon as possible. I passed up surgery for my meniscus a while back and now the damage is almost irreparable. At 30 years old, I would be looking at something close to a knee replacement.

Now, I know this isn't the bone spurs in the heel, but the risk you run of injuring surrounding parts is greater the longer you go without getting something done. You could permanently damage your nerves and then it wouldn't matter if you got surgery or not.

Since you work from home most days of the week, it would make recovery a lot easier.

Also, for the achillies, if you're not doing any intense sports like you mentioned above, I doubt you would see a difference in range of motion or ability. It might even give you more support since the spurs could also be damaging the achillies...

Just my opinion...

 

[rob]

Thanks, DT. I have had, for years, what I believe is undiagnosed achillies tendonitis. I'm guessing these spurs may have played a role in that. If that is the case, then these spurs may have been damaging my achillies.

I'm still waiting for my referral. Free advice: if you can afford it, always go with a PPO.

 

[CapriiRecords]

Honestly, rob, I would get it fixed as soon as possible. I passed up surgery for my meniscus a while back and now the damage is almost irreparable. At 30 years old, I would be looking at something close to a knee replacement.

Now, I know this isn't the bone spurs in the heel, but the risk you run of injuring surrounding parts is greater the longer you go without getting something done. You could permanently damage your nerves and then it wouldn't matter if you got surgery or not.

Since you work from home most days of the week, it would make recovery a lot easier.

Also, for the achillies, if you're not doing any intense sports like you mentioned above, I doubt you would see a difference in range of motion or ability. It might even give you more support since the spurs could also be damaging the achillies...

Just my opinion...

This. Especially if you're going to continue with strenuous exercise / activity. With the mechanics of your achilles and plantar fascia, having your range of motion and flexibility limited because of pain, will start to have an impact on your knees and hips, and eventually your low and upper back.

I had pretty extreme tendonitis in my left foot from a cross country running injury. I didn't get it looked at, wound up impacting my calf, knee and hip through IT band and my lower back. When I finally went in the doctor basically said I could have avoided two and a half years of pain and PT with 6 months of treatment for my achilles and fascia.

 

[Trip411]

Surgery is tough to come back from and I would definitely explore your options as much as possible. You seem to be at the point of having surgery or going on full time chronic pain meds and I will tell you my story and hopefully it helps. I was injured on active duty in 2003 and tore up my lower back and right shoulder pretty bad.

Not going to get into what happened just not worth going into for this but I decided the only possible way for me to stay active duty was to try everything I could to prevent a back surgery. Back fusion in the military is not an immediate discharge but it's close. Anyway I spent a year with physical therapy, multiple steroid injections, disc decompressions in the pain clinic, and even an external electric stimulator. All trying to stay a navy corpsman.

All i did was cause irreversible nerve damage which now after the fusion my back is stable but I have chronic pain. I found out later that the disc material is actually corrosive to nerves so i basically let the disc eat at my nerves for a year. I don't know anything about a heel surgery but if you're getting pressure on those nerves enough to make them go numb or desensitize you need to think about the long term effect thats going to have. You may get some of that back but you may have already permanently lost it. Your doctor can answer that better than me but just giving you another question to ask.

Anyway the reason i wrote this is to say do anything you can to stay off the meds. At my worst i was taking 200mg of oxycontin daily and living life in a fog and honestly the meds never help with the pain its still there, you just are so messed up you don't care. I got off the oxycontin about 4years ago and I take low dose methadone now which is a lot better for long term but the two weeks it took me to get off the oxy's was the worst two weeks of my life. Do whatever you need to do to prevent becoming a chronic pain patient is my advice. If the surgery take 6-9months to recover from do it with as few meds as possible and start seeing a pain clinic while your on them to help you stay away from addiction. Once that nasty bitch sinks her teeth into you its a very very tough road.

I was a medic and my wife is a nurse and i knew all the risks and I still got so addicted I almost lost everything including my life. The home problems and all the social shit be damned i wanted to die I was so sick of the pain and the meds. Now i'm not saying you're going to get where i was just be smart about it and go into it with open eyes. I lost almost 5years of my life to that shit and I can never get that back. Anyway injuries suck and i hope for the best for ya. Make sure you get multiple opinions too. Not every doctor does the same thing with each injury.

 

[rob]

I definitely do not want pain meds. I've been getting by with only taking an occasional tramadol before bed. I'm having a horrible time with my doctor. He won't be my doctor after I get this resolved. I want to switch now but I'm just going to wait until after my Podiatrist visit on Monday (finally).

The pain has gotten a little bit better, which actually bothers me more than anything. It took almost 3 months to get to a manageable state. I still have pain and can't do too much physical activity (avoided the gym for almost a month now). In fact, the issue came about because of low impact workouts, which is also concern.

My wife insists we tackle this aggressively with the doctor as we don't want to put our life and our goals on hold for 6+ months without resolution.

 

[cudacuf]

/me glares at Rob.

I'll take your pain meds.

 

[rob]

So I saw the Chief Surgeon of Scripps Memorial for Podiatry Orthopedics in San Diego.

I'm prescribed a high dose NSAID (1g of nabumentone) and instructed to ice as much as possible. as well as stretching once the inflammation subsides.

if after two weeks it doesn't improve, the next steps will be physical therapy. If that doesn't help, we'll discuss the next steps.

Oh, I did ask how long this could go for if left untreated. 1+ years. Ouch.

 

[MissTerious]

ask to be tested for

Ehlers–Danlos syndrome