I'm not going to tell you that any runner should want to use crutches. I'm also not going to tell you that you will enjoy wearing a fracture walking boot. But there are reasons that you may want to do things a little differently if you're a runner.  The critical issue is that runners must really try to speed up the healing process as much as possible, so that you can avoid losing your running fitness.  What are the three time-sensitive problems solved when you use a fracture walking boot and crutches at the same time?  Well, that's what we're talking about today on the Doc On Th ..read more

Sometimes when you get injured and have to stop running, you start to lose your identity. One of the things that I notice most in runners who have gone weeks or months without running, is they are really bummed out.  These runners seem really grumpy. In some cases, they don't even view themselves as a "runner" anymore...well, because they're "not running." If you want to heal and get back to running as quickly as possible this can be a real problem.  How can self-judgment actually slow down your injury recovery when you have an overtraining injury as a runner?  Well, that's what ..read more

I just had a consultation with a runner who had foot pain that she thought might be a stress fracture that had been coming and going for about a month.  She had been increasing her training volume and doing strength exercises that are supposed to build her running fitness.  The pain seemed to be volume related. The more training she did, the more she would notice the discomfort in her foot. But when we x-rays of her foot, the radiologist suggested this could be an "acute on chronic" stress reaction.  What does that mean?  What is the difference between a chronic stress reac ..read more

Just this morning, during the live Stress Fracture Masterclass I had an interesting question.  The story went like this. An athlete who is a State ranked high school cross country and track, had to suddenly stop running due to intense pain that started about 15 days ago. He went and saw a doctor. He got x-rays. He got an MRI, had a physical exam where the orthopedic doctor poked around and tried to figure out what was going on. The Orthopedist gave on diagnosis, but the Radiologist suggested a different diagnosis. This is where the trouble comes in. So, the runner was told a couple of dif ..read more

Let's say you had an ankle injury a long time ago.  You sprained the ankle when you were out on a trail run, it got better , and you went right back to running. But over time, you slowly got more and more pain in the ankle.  In that case, you doctor might order an MRI of your ankle, or a similar imaging study called an MRA (instead of MRI).  What's the difference between MRI or MRA in a runner with an old nagging ankle injury? That's what we're talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast ..read more

I recently saw a runner who thought that he might have a tibial stress fracture. But it turns out, it was just shin splints, which of course is good news. Because you don't really want a tibial stress fracture. Shin splints is much easier to treat.  One of the questions he asked me was about the best running shoes based on his foot type.  This runner really needed more stability than got from the running shoes that he was wearing. What are two different ways shoes can actually cause shin splints in runners? That's what we're talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast.  ..read more

If you got pain on the ball of the foot, at the base on the 2nd, and you have been running in a minimalist shoe,  running uphill, doing lots of calf raises, or running on steps, you could have an injury to a little bitty ligament called the plantar plate ligament.  If you get an injury to the plantar plate, sometimes your second toe will drift toward your big toe or away from your big toe. The toe drifting sideways can happen for two different reasons. They are very different causes and so they are treated differently.  Why does the toe drift sideways when you have a plantar pla ..read more

If you roll your ankle on a trail run and it turns black and blue and swollen, you may think you just have to take a few days off.  In fact, if you research how long it will take to get back to running, you might find a study that says that if you do early range of motion after an ankle sprain, it only takes 4 days to get back to pre-injury levels of activity.  However, if you do that, you can wind up with a lot of trouble later.   When I lecture at medical conferences on how doctors should treat ankle sprains in runners, I teach 3 phases of ankle sprain injury recovery. If you ..read more

If you're out on a run, and you have heel pain that suddenly hurts a lot, you may have a calcaneal stress fracture, especially if you see bruising and swelling. If you go see a doctor, they take an x-ray, and they don't see anything at all but they squeeze your heel and it hurts. The suspicion goes up.   If your doctor gets an MRI that shows a calcaneal stress fracture, the doctor is probably going to tell you, "you can't do anything until the stress fracture heels." Today on the Doc On The Run Podcast, we're talking about calcaneal stress fractures in runners and I have some good news an ..read more

Last night, I was doing a consultation with an athlete who actually broke one of her toes and her main question was: Can I compete in four weeks? I have a competition in four weeks, I want to compete. Do you think I'll be ready?  Well, I actually told her, no joke, I actually said, “I'm very sorry, but my crystal ball is broken.”  However, I can tell you how to figure that out because that is what I teach athletes to figure out when they do the Fast Track challenge. I have a broken toe and I want to compete in four weeks. Is it possible?  Well, that's what we're talking about to ..read more