Orthotics, Injections, MRIs, Oh My!
So, after spending the past 3 months focused on my abdominal issues, the foot pain wasn’t too much of a bother because I was in bed and off my feet.
After trying the self-adhesive wrap for a week, nothing had changed. We went back to the podiatrist and my custom orthotics had finally come in. After trying another week in the orthotics, I was told by my doctor that we would need to try cortisone injections.
I wanted to do further digging before getting injections, so I went to a different doctor’s office and got a new podiatrist.
They said they wanted to get an MRI done on a 3T scanner to try and see what was going on with my left foot. They said this way we could see if there was a subhallacal sesamoid and if there was, we would do surgery to remove it (but there was a risk it wouldn’t happen because of new COVID protocols only allowing emergency surgeries). They also wanted to resize me for new orthotics, so I was measured for those, and they said they would likely have to do cortisone injections depending on what the MRI showed.
The process of getting my MRI done was a lengthy one because it ended up getting rescheduled 3 times to different locations since none of the offices seemed to have a 3T scanner.
I finally got the MRI done a couple days before graduation and was awaiting my next office visit to hear the results.
July 9th, 2020, I graduated from high school! I managed to walk on the outside edge of my foot onto the stage.
The very next day, I was sitting on the couch and my dog was trying to jump up but ended up falling off. As I dove forward to catch him, I slammed my left foot head on into my coffee table. The joint of my big toe was swelling up like a balloon since it absorbed the hit and it hurt a ton. I iced and elevated it and had some Tylenol as we kept a close eye.
The next day there was some bruising around the joint of the 1st and 2nd toe and I couldn’t walk. So, my superhero family once again had to 2 seat carry me around the house.
July 15th, 2020, I went back to my podiatrist’s office and explained that I hit my foot after already getting the MRI done and that I didn’t know what might’ve changed. At this point I was able to walk again so the doctor wasn’t concerned. The podiatrist said the MRI showed bone bruises on my big toe and my left foot sesamoids. They told me that hitting my foot probably just increased swelling in the area. They also didn’t see any accessory sesamoids in the IPJ, so I did not have subhallacal interphalangeal sesamoiditis. The doctor diagnosed me with tendinitis and said there were likely tears. I then got my corticosteroid injections done.
Ah the injections, I wish I had known how much these would’ve affected me in the future…
My foot was first sprayed with a freeze spray to numb the area, then there was an injection done to the top of my big toe, and I assumed that it was done- but I was told to lay back down because that was just more numbing medication. These numbing medications hurt so much! Then I got 1 injection of corticosteroid in 2 places under my big toe. It didn’t hurt, it just felt like a lot of pressure.
I was put back into my CAM Boot and told to rent a knee scooter and not walk or bear weight until I go to college (which was about a month and a half away).
When I got home the knee scooter arrived in a couple hours and I had started seeing some light bruising on my big toe joint (which we were told was to be expected). Because I wanted to be able to move around for myself and not have to be carried down the stairs to get food, my mom switched rooms with me so I could be downstairs.
For the remainder of the months before going off to college, I did exactly that, used the knee scooter always and did not walk until I went to Boston.
This was not a good idea…
See what happens next in the abdominal journey by reading “Endoscopies & Knee Scooters-Ready for College”.