I dont know if any of you guys recall but I have been recovering from an injured Plantar F. condition for the past 18 months or so. It is pretty much recovered now but I still have to do my exercises etc.
When it was acutely injured I went to a foot specialist and had to walk on sensors/mat to get footstrike movements and gait/walking analysis etc.
Anyways my foot was severely injured at this point (In the morning I had to hop on one foot to the shower) and I was favoring it heavily.
Well what ended up happening is that they ended up making the orthotics to even out my heelstrike and gait.
They ended up thickening the heel side of the left orthotic to allow my heel to strike properly and for my foot to be in the correct position to recover properly.
The problem was that by thickening the heel of my left orthotic they effectively changed my left leg length which knocked my spine/pelvis/hips out of alignment and this DIRECTLY led to my hamstring injury and nagging chronic hamstring pain!!!
I removed them about a week and a half ago at my doctors advice and my hamstring and lower back have been PERFECT ever since!!!
By fixing one problem (foot) it ended up costing me a torn and then chronically inflamed hamstring.
The difference after removing the orthotics was HUGE and immediate. Within 5 hours of removing them my hamstring pain and lower back pain was COMPLETELY gone. Literally it was like something released in my leg.
Just a heads up and warning to you guys with foot injuries or back problems. What cures one thing might totally screw up another!
Most people have a difference of leg lengths and most of the time the body is so used to it that any change results in more damage. Your POD should have realised this with the test he did.
Also, i had a tear of the PF and all that was eventually needed was new orthotics to take the pressure off the PF to allow it to heal. Basically my orthotics have grooves in them for the muscles. This allowed it to heal and since have had no problems with them.
It took 6mths all up with treatment, but once the orthotics were made, it was 100% after 4 weeks…
Not all orthotics are bad, depends how they are made and for what purpose
Not all orthotics are bad you know. I got them and for a time they did throw my hips out of alignment (thus making one leg longer than the other) but my school’s trainer fixed that in about 2 minutes. I think that the benefits of orthotics far outweigh their drawbacks.
That’s why you need to get to the right guy. We always only used Dr Mike Forgraves in Waterloo. A pain in the butt to go there from Toronto, but worth it in the long run. He knows not to over-correct a problem.
It is very important, not only to go to right foot specialist (that works with many athletes), but also not to get orthotics for acute injuries! Any podiatrist who understands the nature of overuse injuries and the biomechanics of an entire individual (I would like to include myself in this group) would treat any acute injury with RICE initially, and then incorporate biomechanical control when the acute inflammation is gone…Also beware of those mat/sensor machines; they are no substitute for a good visual biomechanical exam and usually the orthotics generated from them are less than satisfactory!
choose your doctor carefully and make sure his lab has worked with high performance athletes.don’t go to the joe soap guy who makes them for the average guy walking down the street instead go for the guy with athletic expiereience.orthodics are not bad and in my case have saved me alot of pain and torture due to the doctor who treated me
Yes! This is the key, and is the reason I only use Dr Mike Forgrave. It’s a pain cause he’s in Kitchener, 1 1/2 hrs away, but it’s too important to screw around.
Your orthotics are like your shoes if you can actively twist them without much effort at the center point (or the arch if you will) there are complete garbage. My first one for my left foot was like this and my new orthotic practitioner showed me just how crappy they really were. In fact, I almost threw them in the garbage immediatley!! :eek: