Doc On The Run Podcast

The Ironman triathlon is widely considered to be one of the worlds most grueling single day athletic events. 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and a full 26.2 marathon, all in the same day. My Ironman journey taught me a couple of really important lessons.  Because I know what it feels like, when you think you can't run, even worse, when a doctor says, you can't run…but deep down inside, you know...

If you are a runner and you have a weird aching pain, and you’re not really even sure if it's in your foot or your ankle you may have a condition called sinus tarsi syndrome. When a doctor tells you you developed a case of sinus tarsi syndrome That just means that you have irritated and inflamed the lining of the subtalar joint. So of course as a runner suffering from this condition and trying to...

The best decision is the decision to take the right action. The second best decision is to take the wrong action. And the worst decision of all if you are an injured runner is make a decision to take no action at all.  More often than not, when an injured runner limps into a doctor's office, the doctor tells the runner she has to stop running. We as runners are told to rest. These well-meaning doc...

Just today I got an interesting question from Victoria, who has been suffering with a bad case of sesamoiditis which has been keeping her from running. She saw an orthopedic surgeon who who thinks there is scar tissue around the sesamoid bone restricting the range of motion and causing the pain under the big toe joint. The doctor explained to her that one other conservative option, which might hel...

Just today I was talking to a runner who has an injury and although this injury has gone on for a long time, I thought that she would know exactly whether it's improving or not.  She said she thought it was improving, but we don't really know if it's improving, because there is no data. It is easy for us as runners to tell when our fitness is getting better, we feel stronger, we feel better. But u...

The single most important thing you can do when you think you have a running injury is to make a decision, quickly. You only have two choices. 1. Realize and admit you are injured and get about the business of recovery. 2. Confirm you aren't really injured and then adjust your course to continue your training. But what most runners do is something in between. We want to believe we are not injured....

I got an interesting question sent in from a runner, who said… I fractured my left ankle. I have been in an Aircast ever since. So, should I continue with the Aircast for another three weeks or try out an ankle brace? Obviously when you want to get back to running, you think the key is always to advance as quickly as possible from one stage to the next...and that is true.  You definitely want to t...

No treatment is best for every runner. Not even metatarsal fracture surgery.  Your task as an injured runner who wants to run is to figure why a treatment is right for you…or not right for you…even if it gets recommended by a doctor or surgeon.  When a comes to surgery to fix metatarsal fracture in your foot there a few considerations runners need to think about.  Risk of NOT healing with or witho...

Doctors sometimes prescribe treatments than can be bad for runners.  If wear a fracture walking boot, your muscles get weaker, your tendons and ligaments get stiffer, your bones start to lose calcium. If you take ibuprofen during a race you can get gastrointestinal upset that complete wrecks your nutrition plan. In the the worst cases you could even get kidney failure. If you break a bone and a do...

Most runners are aggressive by nature. Planning, training, eating, analyzing, reaching for goals in way that your friends may label…“obsessed.” Sometimes we are so aggressive we make a mistake, do too much and get an injury.   The bad news is that we are now inundated with an air of “self-care” mentality that backfires. The good news is that you already know how to heal. It is the same as recovery...

I just had a consultation with an injured runner who asked… “Are crutches bad for injured runners?” The correct answer is yes, crutches are bad for injured runners, especially if you use crutches any longer than it takes to heal your injury enough to start walking without crutches. But if you needed crutches, and you avoid them, that could be even worse for you as a runner. Nothing in medicine is...

I just had a consultation with a woman who has been having pain in the toes and the end of the big toenails just after running. The pain in the big toes has been getting worse.  She was also getting some numbness or tingling around the corner of the toenails. She wanted to know…  "Am I doing something wrong with my shoes?” “Am I cutting my toenails wrong?”  “Is there really something wrong on the...

Every runner who is injured and has been told to stop running wants to get back to running as quickly as possible.  We all want a secret path to healing and a fast track to return to recovery. When it comes to getting better after you get an over training injury there are really only two possibilities if you want to get back to running as quickly as possible.   Today on the Doc On The Run podcast,...

Today a runner asked a great question…”Can I run with shin splints?” The short answer is yes, you can run on shin splints for a short period of time…if it shin splints.  The problem is, is that there are a couple of different conditions that are often called “shin splints” that could be something else. The real questions are: If I stop running because of shin splints will I lose all of my fitness?...

Today I heard a great question from a runner… She asked, “A doctor told me that I have a neuroma in my foot and I need to have surgery to remove it because it hurts when I run. Should I get a surgical second opinion?” There is really one clear indication of when you really need to seek a second opinion when a doctor recommends surgery. Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we're talking about wheth...

Do bone stimulators help with sesamoiditis? Will  a bone stimulator help the sesamoids, if the bone is not fractured?  Is there clinical evidence that bone stimulator will help sesamoiditis? Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we're talking about whether or not bone stimulator might help sesmoiditis in a runner.

I was just on a consultation call with the runner who got a metatarsal stress fracture after a long run in minimalist running shoes. The question asked was, “do minimalist running shoes cause stress fractures?” Minimalist running shoes do not cause stress fractures.  In fact. running doesn't even caused stress fractures. Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we're talking about how minimalist runni...

Do I have to stop running to rest a metatarsal stress fracture? Let’s imagine 10 rowers in a boat. If one rower gets tired or injured, does the boat have to stop? Do all 10 rowers have to stop rowing, park the boat and sit on the shore? When you have 10 metatarsal bones in your feet and only one bone is injured you don't have to necessarily stop all activity. Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, w...

You cannot plan a trip without a destination.   And you cannot expect to heal as fast as possible if you do not have a clear goal and a defined timeline. The quality of the medical advice you get will depend on the clarity of your running goals.  Running injury treatment needs to be tailored to you, your specific injury, the severity of your injury and your unique running goals. Today on the Doc O...

Today's question comes from Diane who was listening to the podcast and wrote in because she wanted to know more about the long-term effects of ankle sprains. Ankle sprains frequently lead to two main problems.  Many runners mistakingly move their ankles too soon, and can wind up with chronic pain. Many other runners fail to rehabilitate their ankle and can end up with chronic ankle instability. Bo...

A runner with a stress fracture just called me for a phone consultation. He was concerned because he got an X-ray and saw a bulge in the bone. The question was whether or not this bulging area of healing bone in the stress fracture was a good thing or a bad thing.  More than anything else he just wanted to know if the lump of bone on the x-ray was an indication that it was okay to start running. S...

If you're a runner who has had aching pain in the ball of the foot you may have been diagnosed with a plantar plate sprain or a plantar plate tear. Or maybe you were told you had a plantar plate rupture. The most important factor to a runner is how quickly you can heal the plantar plate injury and get back to running. The chances are good your doctor didn't really discuss this component of your tr...

It’s cold and flu season and one question that comes up this time of year is, "Should I run when I am sick?"  The obvious concern is that if you have a training schedule and marathon on the calendar your fitness will suffer. You don’t want to lose ground.  This is a valid concern. If you stop, it can wreck your training.  But you have to understand something that seems to get lost on most sick run...

When you are sick or injured, you may feel like you are helpless.  You think you can’t run. You think you can’t build your running body.  You think that you can’t do anything to help the situation.  If you're injured, you're probably sitting around thinking, "Well, I can't do anything. I can't run. I can't go to the gym. I can't do anything."  But that's not true. You just have to think about what...

Many runners seem to be surprised when they get an overtraining injury. However, once we start talking about the injury, they almost always know something is wrong days or weeks before they actually get the pain and real injury. Every runner in training should pay attention to the subtle signals that tell you when you are heading for an over training injury. If you get the sense you are in an over...