Even Athletic Trainers Get Sports Injuries!

by Bart
(Springfield, Missouri)

I should have known better. I tell my patients all the time how important their athletic shoes are. But, I happened to give in to those flashy Nikes in the display window, and I bought them. They looked great. Little did I know they would lead to my very own sports injury story.

Flash forward about 3 months. I had a lot of stressful stuff going on in my life, and I needed some way to cope. So, I started running. First off on the treadmill, just a few minutes at a time. I wasn't used to it, but it didn't take long to become addicted. I was quickly running 5 days a week, and worked up to 3-4 miles at a time.

That isn't a lot, but it is for someone who isn't a real runner. It was a great way to reduce the stress in my life, and it was something that made me feel good.

About a month after I started running, I started having this funny pain in my right foot. It wasn't really sharp, but it was definitely noticeable. It was right on the outside of the foot, at the base of the 5th metatarsal. I kinda ignored it for a few days (just like I always tell my patients not to do), but it wouldn't go away.

By this time I was really into the running. I had migrated to running outside, and I looked forward to it everyday. In fact, if I didn't get to run I was cranky, and felt awful.

Finally, I bit the bullet and asked one of my coworkers to look at my foot, to confirm the sneaking suspicion I had about what was going on. Sure enough, she thought I was working my way towards a stress fracture. What was weird was that I wasn't really running that much. We couldn't figure it out, until we looked at my shoes.

Those flashy Nikes that I had bought, that looked so cool, were absolutely not made for my feet. I hadn't really thought about them when I started running in them. I hadn't looked at their fit for my feet, and whether they were a good shoe for me to run in. Stupid I know, but we all make mistakes.

To make a long story short, I had to stop running for about 3 weeks...It just about killed me. I had to find other ways to relieve my stress...I tried the elliptical trainer, and the stairmaster, but nothing quite worked like running.

After 3 weeks off, and a couple of trips to the shoe store, I was back to running, and all was well. I avoided the full blown stress fracture by taking care of it early. But I probably could have avoided the whole thing if I had paid better attention to my shoes.

Even athletic trainers, with all of our knowledge, sometimes forget the most important things we tell our patients everyday.