Foot Opinions Needed!

Even if you know me in real life, you probably don’t hear me talk about my foot issues very often. I try to put it out of my mind. I don’t think about it long term, I try to just live “in the moment” with the injury and the pain.

Since having Tess my pain level hasn’t changed. I wear my tennis shoes at all times and if I’m overly active, I hurt. If I wear my non-tennis shoe shoes (Crocs with good support) then I will hurt. 

This morning I had my first visit with the foot dr since having Tess. As expected, there wasn’t a plan of action moving forward to try to heal my injury. The dr told me I’m a “tennis shoes for life” girl and made me promise to never run a marathon (which was an easy promise to make haha). 

I talked to him a lot about Mrs. Charlotte. She has arthritis and she hurts a lot but the pain doesn’t make her arthritis any worse. She can push herself and she will hurt more, but it won’t cause further damage. And the same works the other way too. She can rest a ton and not do as much, but it won’t heal her arthritis either. At this point I want to know if I can start pushing myself more. Will walking to the park with Tess in the stroller damage my foot further? Or will it just cause me more pain? Because pain I can live with! 

I have been “babying” my foot for a year now in hopes of healing and in fear of causing more damage. I just want to find what my new normal needs to be. It’s a balance of finding the amount of pain I can live with. He agreed that it’s time to work on that end of things rather than focusing on a plan for improvement. 

Our plan is to have another MRI to compare it to the one I had last year. See if the year in my tennis shoes, the shots, the babying it has helped heal it at all or if it’s all the same as it was when I first came to visit him. Basically that MRI will be the nail in the foot coffin. 

Until the MRI he wants me to start pushing myself more. Wear my tennis shoes and do more activities. Take the walks to the park! Don’t run or do anything “crazy” but start doing more. With Hawaii in a couple weeks it’s a good chance to try it out. Like we are going to eat at a restaurant that is a 10 min walk from our hotel. We had planned to take a taxi due to my foot. But now? We’ll do the 10 min walk and I’ll wear my tennis shoes and we’ll see what happens.

He told me to take 800 mg of Ibuprofen each day if/when I have pain and he is having me bring along a prescription that will knock out the pain even faster if I REALLY start hurting. I wanna test the limits but I don’t want to ruin my trip in the process either!!! 

As always with these appointments, I feel very depressed and down. Because I try not to ever focus on my foot, having to do to the dr and discuss it makes me sad and forces me to think about it. 

I am not quite 30 years old. I’m not ready to just accept chronic pain for the rest of my life. I can’t put this whole thing to rest until I am SURE there is NO SOLUTION.

This is where I need advice!!! Zach agrees with me and is supportive and now I want to find THE BEST of THE BEST foot drs. I don’t care if I have to travel to get there. I want to see the most knowledgable person I can and let them be the final say about all of this! 

So who do I see? Where do I go?

If it helps to know I had a fibular sesmoidectomy and my issues now are directly related to that surgery. (Long story short: my old dr didn’t have me do ANY sort of healing process post surgery so it go screwed up…lovely.). 

I’d appreciate ANY advice you may have!!! It’s going to be a difficult decision about where to go and I just want to make sure I’m making the best choice possible! I totally 100% completely trust (and adore!) my current doctor but I know I won’t be able to accept my foot diagnosis without trying one more time to find a cure for my issues!

Thank you for your prayers over the years (yes, we’re at 2 YEARS now of this foot issue!) and for your continued prayers into the future! 

Emily Parker

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