I think I may need to find a new primary care physician. The doctor's office did great in getting me the referral appointment, but my PCP called me on the phone yesterday afternoon, read me the results and left a copy at the front desk for me to pick up. His recommendation was this: "Well, I'd recommend you not run on it for a while, but if you were a professional athlete they would just ice, it, wrap it and keep going. It's your choice." I'm not too sure about this place. Below are the results from my MRI on my right ankle: "FINDINGS: A moderate sized ankle effusion is present. The anterior joint recess is particularly distended. There is an irregular 7 x 3 x 13 mm low signal intensity structur in the anterior joint recess which could represent a large loose body. A donor site for a body of this size is not clearly depicted. An irregular synovial fold or synechia would be an alternate consideration. There is mild bone marrow edema in the medial malleolus and medial talus deep to the proximal and distal attachments of the deltoid ligament. The deltoid ligament is intact. The lateral ankle ligaments are normal. No other marrow signal abnormalities are seen in the hindfoot. The midfoot is unremarkable. The posterior tibialis, flexor, and peroneal tendons are normal. The Achilles tendon is intact. Plantar fascia is unremarkable. OPINION: 1. Moderate ankle effusion with 7 x 3 x 13 mm low signal intensity intrasynovial structure in the anterior joint recess. This lesion could represent a synovial fold, synechia, or perhaps even a loose body, however a donor site for a body of this size is not identified. 2. Mild bone marrow edema deep to the tibial and talar attachments of the deltoid ligament suggests mild medial ankle sprain." After doing some Google work on medical terminology, I've pretty much figured out that all of that fancy wording indicates that my ankle is bruised and swollen from taking a pounding on the pavement. Nothing is broken and no ligaments or tendons are torn. So, what would you guys do?
Your interpretation is spot on... You have a bruised and swollen ankle. Is it really painful? Where are you at with your training, ahead of schedule? It's been my experience that a 4-5 day rest can do wonders for the body especially if you feel ahead of schedule on training anyway. Ice it and be good to go in a few days. It may not develop into a serious medical problem if you continue to push it, but it won't get better and it will likely continue to be painful.
Sounds a lot like my ankle, it would take a long time to type mine out. All I can do is to keep driving on. Dr said my ankle has been fractured so many times that bones are fusing together and fracture at the slightest sprain. The word edema comes up a lot too. From what I gather your ankle has a lot of fluid an scar tissue being built up. I haven't looked into any surgery to hard yet. Sounds like your going to have arthritis in your ankle. Welcome to the club, I'm 30 and I'm in pain everyday from it. I filed a claim when I was getting out of the Army in 2008 and still fighting the VA for it. 7 years in the Infantry you would think that would be a pretty obvious reason for it. Good luck, and Go Army beat Navy.
Sometimes it's pretty painful. The pain is located just behind the inside ankle bone. It usually hurts the day after a run when I walk. I've found that when I walk if I push off with my toe it doesn't hurt as much. Same thing when I run. If I focus on pushing off with my toes it alleviates a lot of the discomfort. As far as the training goes, I'm so far ahead of the training schedule it's funny. According to the schedule, the pre-training doesn't start until next month. I have plenty of time to allow for a week or two off. I'm just afraid of losing what I've already gained.
If you were concerned, the doctor here would send you to Sports Medicine. However, like your research showed, it's more of a bone bruise in the ankle. If it is bothersome while running try a ankle wrap support. Otherwise elevate, ice, ibuprofen for pain/swelling. Reevaluate symptoms in 5-7 days. It may be something that comes and goes - after running, may not hurt to ice it.
I ice it after every run and I've started icing it when I get home from work too. I've also started keeping it wrapped day and night. I just wrap it a little tighter for a run. We'll see how it goes. Oh, and Motrin has become a staple in my diet.
Like Pink Pony says, making Motrin a part of your diet is not such a great idea. I'll go along with your doc. Unless you're getting paid to go out running, I would lay back, give it a rest and let it heal. You're not going to pay any attention to what I'm going to say, but I'll say it anyway. Injuries like that may be painful now, but you ain't seen nothin' yet. Go ahead and push it. You'll be remembering my warning when you're limping into the bank to pick up your social security money.
Sorry. I thought it would be obvious that my "making Motrin a part of my diet" was a joke, but in case it wasn't, let me clear that up: I was joking. The stated maximum daily dosage for ibuprofen is 3200 mg per day for 10 days. I've been taking 800 mg twice a day for around a week. If my intentions were to disregard any advice I received I wouldn't have asked what everyone thought. I could have worded my last post a little better, but in that post I stated what I was presently doing, not what I intend to do in the future. At this point I'm trying to decide what my best options are. I know what caused this. I tried to do too much too soon. Now the question is do I totally stop and let it heal, do I cut "way back" and slowly work my way back up or do I try to work through this like I did successfully with my left ankle? I tend to think "no" on the last option because this is worse than my left ankle was.
Well, I guess I'm going to be taking around a 2 week break from running and give my ankle a chance to recover. Then I'll start off at lower mileage per run and slowly work my way back up. I really want to keep going, but the intelligent thing to do here is to give myself a chance to heal, so that's what I'm going to do.
