Doc On The Run Podcast

Who will you be 1 Year from Now?

I’m recording this episode right around the start of the New Year, and this time of year everybody starts talking about their goals. Most people talk about where they want to be. What they want to accomplish, where they want to be, but I what I really think you have to think about is who are you going to be. Who are you going to be in one year, because … You know, it’s interesting. 

You would never expect your son to go into third grade and come out of third grade without having changed tremendously both physically, socially, athletically, intellectually…in every way. That kid’s going to change a lot in one year. We expect our kids to change a lot all the time. They’re growing, they’re changing, they’re improving, but then we grow up and what do we do? We get a house. We get a job. We have kids. We get locked into a job, and then some of that development stops, right? Now, if you’re a runner that’s probably not true. You probably have goals that you’re trying to improve on all the time. If you’re a doctor and you have a practice you’re probably trying to improve your practice in the way that you take care of patients through the value that you’ve provided them. You’re probably trying to prove all of that at the same time.

Today on Doc on the Run podcast we’re talking about who you’re going to be one year from now.

If a treatment is best for most, is it best for a runner?

The idea that one given treatment will work for one condition, when the people are different is absurd. 

Runners are different than normal people. 

Risks of certain treatments are much higher for runners then they are for other people. 

Some treatments that are not risky at all for a runner, might be very risky for the average non-runner. 

Today on the Doc on the Run Podcast, we're talking about if a treatment is best for most people, is it best for a runner?

What Is The Difference Between Tendinits And Tendinosis In Runners?

This question comes up a lot for runners with Achilles tendon injuries. But it can happen with any kind of tendon. The difference between an injury to a tendon which has been labeled "tendonitis" versus "tendinosis" is really a difference in the amount of time that you have the condition and the amount of damage to the tendon itself.

 There’s been a long running debate about this. I was lecturing at a medical conference in Iceland this the summer. Specifically, it was a lecture on tendon injuries in athletes. One of the key points was that the old research claims inflammation does not play a role in the development of tendinosis is wrong.

 In this episode I will explain the difference between tendonitis and tendinosis.

 

Goals for healing your running injury

Let me ask you a question. Do you set goals when you are training for a race? What about when you are injured? I mean let’s face it, if you are training for a marathon you probably have a really specific goal right?

You want to do a specific race on a specific day. You want to start at a specific time and you want to end at a specific time. So then you have a whole bunch of goals to try to get you to that particular outcome.

But how about when you get injured? I see runners all the time and they seem to just completely get off track when this happens. All of their goals go out of the window. They cancel the race, they don’t have any goals for their next race and many times they have no goals at all for their healing.

Today on the Doc On The Run podcast we’re talking about goals for healing your running injury.

How long will it take to heal a running injury?

The number one question I get from runners is "How long is it going to take me to heal this injury?" It could be a metatarsal stress fracture, it could be plantar fasciitis, it could be an Achilles tendon injury. Then the follow-up question is always "How soon will I be back to running?"

 

The whole underlying premise of those questions is completely absurd. All of us want to believe it takes some certain given timeline for every given injury to resolve. And that’s just crazy! I get this question from doctors at medical conferences and they’ll ask me,"How long does it take for a fourth metatarsal stress fracture to heal in the average runner and how long would it take for them to get back to running." But that doesn’t make sense. It’s not that simple...

In this podcast episode we’re talking about how long it will take to heal a running injury.

5 Causes of Big Toe Joint Pain in Runners podcast

Today on the Doc On The Run podcast we’re talking about the 5 causes of big toe joint pain in runners.

If you are a runner and you have pain in the big toe joint, the first step in treating it is figuring out what is actually causing the problem. There are lots of different causes of pain in the big toe joint, but there are really five that affect runners most often. These are the most common that I see in runners, so I’m going to explain all 5 of the conditions to you.

But not all these conditions mean you have to stop running. There’s whole range of conditions in the big toe joint, but you have to figure out which one of these is most likely to be causing your pain, to decide whether or not you should stop running, or whether or not you can keep running and get it to calm down while you’re still running. You just have to make sure you know which is causing the problem to figure out if you can keep running.

Collagen Healing- Is it working for or against your running injury

I know I talk about this a lot but collagen is one of the most critical things when you’re healing any running injury. If you have a tendon, ligament, fascia that’s injured. All that stuff is made of collagen.

If you get an ankle sprain, you get an Achilles tendon tissue, you get a peroneal tendon tissue, you get plantar fasciitis. Any of those things, it’s all an issue with collagen and all of those structures have to heal.

If you think all you need to do is form collagen, that’s not really the whole story. The fact is that when you get one of these injuries, the collagen and the formation of collagen in your body to try to heal that tissue can actually be working for or against you when you’re a runner.

Today on the Doc On The Run podcast we’re talking about Collagen- is it working for or against running injury.

What's the difference between a Doctor and a Librarian

In an ideal world, we would have research that actually studies everything, every variable, every possible scenario and then helps you know conclusively what will work and what will definitely not work. The problem is that research studies really don’t work out that way. There’s almost never a study that shows that something is 100% effective for everybody, all of the time, given all of the variables that can go into a patient’s given circumstances.

When you’re a runner, that’s even way more complicated because you don’t just get injured and want to heal a specific injury like a metatarsal stress fracture or Achilles’s tendonitis. You want to run. You don’t want to just heal the thing, you want to run. You want to heal it as quickly as possible, so you can keep running. And you want to figure out why the injury happened in the first place so it doesn’t happen again.

Unfortunately, there are many doctors who hide behind their stack of research  articles and they don’t really help you understand what the real possibilities are for you. When you’re a runner you have to look at every possibility.

In this podcast episode we’re talking about the difference between a doctor and a librarian.

The one small shift you need when you aren't healing a running injury

You’re never staying the same. You’re never the same person. You’re not the same person you were a year ago, and you’re not the same person now. You’re certainly not the same person you were 10 years ago either. And what you’re doing professionally, you’re probably not the same sort of person you were a year ago or 10 years ago with that either. The truth is pretty much nothing stays the same in life. And running injuries, they have a life of their own. But they’re never staying the same either. And today we’re going to talk about that.

Now the other day somebody called me and they said, “You know, my injury just isn’t getting better. I have a metatarsal stress fracture and it’s pretty much just staying the same.” But the deal is is that, again, your injury is never the same. So you have to think about what’s changing, what’s getting better and what’s getting worse.

Today on the Doc On The Run podcast, we’re talking about how your running injury is never staying the same.

Can I Run with a Split Peroneal Tendon?

Can I run with a split peroneal tendon? Well, yes. There are two cases in which you can run with a split peroneal tendon. Number one. If you’re certain running will not make the peroneal tendons worse or if you can accept that you may make the injury worse and it’s worth the risk to you, given your specific goals. Today, we’re going talk about what all that means if you’re a runner with a longitudinal tear or a split in the peroneal tendons.

This whole episode is basically based on a couple of questions that a runner sent to me on Twitter. The first question was, “Is surgery the only option for runners when they have a split peroneal tendon?” And second, “If it’s possible to run? What a runner must do after running?” And then third, “What kind of exercises are good? ”

So, based on those questions, we’re going to put together this episode to help you understand split peroneal tendons and what that means for you as a runner.