Rankled by the Ankle

Surgery day arrived.  My ultra-helpful saint of a wife drove me to the hospital and we arrived at 7:00am for a scheduled start time of 8:30.  After all the requisite paperwork and collection of monies, I was in the surgical cue with an IV in the top of my hand (ouch; I don't really prefer that location). My doc comes back and tells me about the procedure.  I was a bit wrong about how it will go down.  He tells me that he intends to get behind the Achilles to remove the bone.  No plans to cut it or to anchor it.  Some poking and prodding to figure out if the pain favors one side or another.  My guess is that he's wondering where the ideal location will be to make an incision?  The doc also tells me that everything looked good to go in the MRI; nothing that wouldn't be fixed by today's surgery.  The anesthesiologist  also has a chat with me about the sedation and numbing to be done.  Then more waiting; quite a bit of waiting. Fina...

Where do these things come from? Sorry to say for me, but I think these are more common in overweight people.  I would clearly fit that category now.  I think you probably increase the odds by trying to be active while overweight. About five years ago, I lost a lot of weight.  I did so by combining a low carb diet with a running program.  I completed several 5k's, 10k's, and six half marathons over the next few years.  Life changed for me and the running and diet went south.  I gained the weight back, but I periodically attempted to jump start my running.  My theory, and it is just a theory, is that this helped to create a heel spur.  I believe the body tries to compensate and the bone grows.  It just doesn't work well. Another possible contributing factor, based upon my uninformed theory, is a high ankle sprain I suffered about eight years ago.  This has caused my left ankle to be more unstable than the right, perhaps changing my ...

Ouch!  A shooting pain in my heel.  It isn't constant, but it is certainly there.  The more active I am, the worse it is going to be later on.  That's the funny thing: it doesn't always hurt right away, but eventually you will know something is wrong. That's my nemesis.  That's my Achilles' heel. I'm definitely not Achilles.  He had only one physical weakness, and I have quite a few!  But we do share a problem in that area of the body. I have a bone spur that digs into the insertional point of my Achilles tendon.  The part where it fans out across the heel bone and attaches near the bottom.  The spur is along the curve.  It isn't in a good place.  It nags at my tendon when I move, particularly when I flex my foot up or down. I've found a lot of information about the condition online.  I've also found a lot of similar issues in that area that are treated in much the same way.  I've read blogs about treatment and pos...