View Workout (Alexander Samaha)
If I had a stress ball, I would have popped it.
April 22, 2011 (Morning)
Exercise Type: Other
Comments:
Went to my doctor's appointment today. I was actually looking forward to it, because apparently he was a marathon runner and orthopedic doctor who specializes in sports medicine, specifically running and specifically knees.
He was saying all the right things, i guess, but he was so condescending that I got pretty frustrated. Within seconds of me telling him about my injury, he told me that I don't have tendonitis whatsoever, that i was clearly misdiagnosed and i only have "general knee pain" which is "common to most runners". He said that my hours of stretching was "useless" and didn't help whatsoever with my knee (ughhhh). Also apparently icing it only provides temporary relief and doesnt actually help either. He said that to fix it all i needed was to wear walking shoes with "cushioning" (ie http://shoeseria.com/info/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/keens__thumb.jpg) and that I need to only increase my mileage by 10% a week and no more, and my knee should be fine. I found it hard to believe that my panacea was to wear comfortable walking shoes. I thought I was building back up very slowly, so I don't see how that can be the only solution either. Basically throughout the whole thing he I felt like he was talking to me like I was incompetent, and that it was my fault for having this injury by not wearing the right gear and by running to much, and that it was a regular "run of the mill" pain, and even said that I could run even next week, as long as I start with only 2 miles twice a week and build gradually. I felt like he was insinuating that my coach didn’t know what he was doing when he was building me back up into running. He also made a big deal about only using shoes for 300 miles (which I was already doing) and when I told him I bought new shoes two weeks ago started saying they probably weren’t good and I should go to Pacers. When I told him I got them from Georgetown running and they were bought specifically for knees, flat feet and over-pronating, he still dismissed me. Even my brand of insoles (that were 40 dollars) weren’t that good and that he knows another brand is better. It didn’t help that my mother was enthralled at what he was saying and was jubilant at the thought that my injury was over and that all I needed to do was buy certain shoes and get back running slowly and I would be a-ok.
I can't tell if I’m frustrated because he was right and I possibly wasted hours of my life and an entire season doing the wrong things to help the wrong injury, or if it was just because he was condescending and dismissed my injury as "not that big of a deal" He even told me rather cheekily that this was the "beginning of my running career, not the end of it".
Either way, I’m really hoping that he's right and that all I need to do is wear cushioned shoes and build slowly and I will be healed, but my experience the past few months and the pain in my knee that I have while I sit and write this is telling me otherwise. I don’t wan’t to come off as a know-it-all, but I feel like his advice could have easily come from a Google search, let alone a visit to a famous orthopedic doctor specializing in sports medicine (which was why I was excited for the appointment)
I still plan on icing and stretching, because I think it has made my knee better over the past few months (Whether it actually has or they are just placebo's, I don’t know. Regardless, it can’t hurt to stretch or ice.) He’s probably right, and I just got really frustrated over the situation. Either way, I thought this doctor appointment was supposed to help, and instead it just made it worse and more confusing.
PS: If anyone actually read this, I apologize for the long and angsty post.