Ankle trouble

Why do I run? I keep having trouble with different parts of my body. I keep telling myself that once I get really efficient with my biomechanics and fast with my pace these problems will go away. I still think they will. I'm not getting old or anything.

At first it was my right IT band. I couldn't go 2 miles without extreme pain on the outside of my kneecap. Then that resolved itself and I suddenly began having IT band problems with my left knee. Very severe problems, coupled with a cramping gluteus medius.

Physical therapy and ice helped the IT band situation. I strengthened muscles in my hips that help the IT band stay in place, and now it doesn't bother me at all.

Now it's my left ankle.

I don't know what I did. The theory is that this is not related to running at all, and that somehow I tripped and strained something without knowing it. If you know me at all, I am a huge klutz, and I trip over things (and over nothing) several times a day. Anyway, 2 1/2 weeks ago as I was running, after about 1 mile I started to hear a strange rhythm with my pace. It sounded like a horse. My left foot was making a normal motion and sound, but my right foot was flat. Every time it hit the ground it was flat--no heel to toe at all. When I got to the top of the hill, I sat down to see what was going on. I discovered that I could not rotate my ankle at all and it had locked up at 90 degrees.

I stretched a bit, and sat down again and was able to move my ankle in circles. I did that for about 5 minutes, and then stretched my calves again, and I finished my run without a problem. The same thing has happened every morning for the past 2 1/2 weeks.

I went to the doctor for an x-ray, and nothing was stress-fractured. He sent me to the PT last week, who noticed that my right ankle is significantly weaker than the left one. He gave me some exercises to help strengthen and stretch things out, along with an electro-cortisone patch. That seems to be helping a bit, but I needed something more.

Today I went to see if a massage therapist could help work out whatever the problem was. She worked my foot and ankle over quite well, but she did a couple of unusual things; first, she pulled out a huge tuning fork, hit it on the table and touched the end of it on different parts of my foot. It felt kind of strange to have those vibrations going into my foot, but kind of cool at the same time. She said that it was "vibration therapy--it is the future." OK. Then she pulled out some Chinese Snake Oil Linament. She rubbed it into my foot and told me the herbs would penetrate my skin and help to heal things in my ankle. I don't know about that, but it sure was stinky.

I actually think my ankle feels better, but I can't say that I attribute it to the vibration therapy or snake oil. Just the good, old, working the big knot out of the bottom of my foot. I had angry, angry muscles all over my foot and lower leg.

We'll find out tomorrow morning when I run if I need to buy some tuning forks.