Leg Pain Sucks...But It's Curable!

Sick of my weather updates? Oh well...by the time we left at 8:30pm it cooled down to a whopping 100*.

So you know I'm dealing with some horrid allergies, but suffering through my runs. Today I got to the point that I couldn't even turn the steering wheel due to the pain between my shoulder blades. I made a pit stop at the chiropractors office this afternoon and he is a life saver! Basically he knocked out my headache and sinus pain, allowed my sinuses to drain more freely (sarcastic yay!) and made it so I can now turn my head to the right and do other activities without my shoulder area being in pain. I LOVE CHIROPRACTIC.

That being said I started out with this practice when I was 18, originally seeing my current chiropractors father. Once his father passed away I turned to him as my doctor. Being that I've been seeing them for so many years you sort of grow a special relationship and bond. My doctor is very friendly and very easy to talk to, not only about medical issues, but family life as well. My babies have been seeing them since the day they were release from the hospital. That's how much faith I have in him. Moving on, so given our relationship, he understands my health goals and is great with advice from a friendly aspect and the medicinal aspect.

He's notice a huge improvement in my spinal health since I've started losing weight. Today I casually mentioned that I have been getting close to 15 minute miles when I run and he was impressed. It then lead to the leg/shin pains I've been having. I pointed to the muscles involved and he told me that what I'm dealing with is commonly mis-diagnosed as shin splints, but truly aren't because I haven't any hairline fractures. What I have is referred to as Anterior Tibial Strain. Essentially when running your toe is lifting up in order to run properly, but when you slow down or begin walking again you have to put forth more effort to lift your feet because it's a different movement. The muscle is already weak from running and therefore the walking tends to bring out the pain in those muscles. Oh goody. :/

He said the easiest solution is to do toe raises with resistance. For example, put your foot under something heavy and try to raise your toes and pause with them raised. This will help stretch and relax the muscle. He said I could use a sand bag, but I found Baby Girl works just as well. And she thinks it's hilarious that I allow her to stand on my foot. I told him I was already using resistance stretches to stretch the plantar muscles that were giving me issues, and since I started them I haven't really had any foot pain...I just started up with the leg pain when I started jogging again. He said with the combination of stretches it should work itself out and I may need to rest the ole legs a little. Not exactly what you want to hear when you're a third of the way through a three month challenge. But, if I want to stay healthy I have to pay attention to what my body is telling me.

I've only taken one night off this week, as far as the challenge is concerned, and I have a nephew soon to make his debut tonight/tomorrow, so I may have to just take tomorrow night off. :)