I know I've been slacking lately and haven't updated the blog. The last time I wrote I was going to acupuncture. I loved acupuncture and it helped a LOT. It didn't however solve the problem with my foot so Dr. Lavallee wanted to take a new approach...prolotherapy.
Before I go on I want to let everyone know that acupuncture was absolutely wonderful and I would reccomend it to anyone. It can't however fix actual mechanical type problems, such as impingements, compressed tissues, etc. It is very good for nerve based problems and thing that aren't caused by the physical structure of the body.
Anyway, Dr. Lavallee said he wanted me to go see Dr. Mark Cantieri for prolotherapy. Now, I had heard of prolotherapy, read about it a little and then assumed I'd never have to have it done. WRONG. Dr. Lavallee said it would hurt really bad but it should solve the problem.
The said problem is in a sense a kind of compression syndrome caused by metatarsals and other foot bones having such lax joints that they crush the soft tissues in between them. This causes tremendous pain and trauma to the foot.
Prolotherapy consists of a solution (mainly sucrose or other non-medicinal component) injected into the joint in order to inflame and irritated the tendons and ligaments so that they will heal themselves which will make them tighten up.
Dr. Cantieri drew a grid looking thing on my foot, which I believe was showing where the foot bones are located and the spaces in between and then he started injecting. It was absolutely horrific. It hurt so bad I gripped the table I was laying on like there was no tomorrow. Sure, there is some lidocane in the injections but as some of you may know, lidocane doesn't work on EDS people like it works on normal people.
When it was all said and done I left with somewhere around 46 injections into my right foot, most on the top, a couple in the arch and ankle and a percocet script. The doctor told me that I'd be limping after the injections but should be able to live rather normally.....
...yeah right...by that night I could not touch my foot or move it in any way. Turns out I had given someone my crutches so I was screwed. I crawled for hours until I texted my friend Emily Killilea and asked if I could borrow hers. Her, her husband & dog drove to my house at 9:30 at night to bring them to me. It felt so great to have a friend that would do this at so little notice.
I had to call in to work the next two days, was on crutches for three. It sucked. It's been 12 days since the injections and I still have some pain in the joints, however, NOT in the area that always hurt before. I'm assuming the new areas of pain will go away eventually.
I have at least two more prolotherapy sessions to go to, I'm dreading them like you would not believe but I know I have to do it because I don't want to live with this foot pain the rest of my life.
I hope your foot has starting feeling better. I know first hand how bad it hurts having it done on the foot. To be honest, if I had know-how painful, I probably wouldn't have had it done. I'd been told my foot would be sore for a few days and then start feeling a lot better. To me that sounded like a fair tradeoff, some added pain to my usual pain, for a opportunity to feel better later. Instead I got a swollen and severely bruised painful foot, I could barely stand on, let alone do the walking that I was told I needed to do, to promote recovery and healing. When the swollen subsided and bruising faded, I waited anxiously to start feeling better. It never happened and I must say I'm terribly disappointed. I had high hopes for this to work and to be let down was terribly discouraging. My doctor said I would just need the one treatment I was surprised because I had read it takes a few treatments. There is no way I could justify doing this procedure again being I received zero benefit. I have read it helps people so I guess it just wasn't for me. I know I followed all directions for after care so that wasn't the problem.
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