Investiagate Your Pain

I noticed the other day as I was walking that I had some pain on the underside of my right forefoot. Every time I stepped it really hurt. Like… “ow… do I have a stress fracture?!” I was perplexed. Years ago, this feeling would lead to an automatic fear of movement and the assumption that there was something very wrong with my foot.

This happens to all of us all the time: inexplicable pain that has popped up for no reason. Of course, much of my work deals with chronic pain management--not just issues that pop up from time to time. Either way, the line of questioning follows a similar logic. Many of us mistakingly leave the thought process here: shrug it off, continue to do whatever it was we were doing, and hope the pain stops. Or we assume the worst and stop moving altogether (🙅‍♂️ nobody wants that).

So I took a moment to stop, think, and ask myself the same questions I ask my students who are in pain.

First, I asked myself what the pain was like. Was it sharp? Stabbing? Swelling?

I felt like the bone was almost bruised—not quite but almost. There was no way it could possibly be actually seriously injured—I didn’t remember stubbing it or hurting it in the last week or so.

Ok, Steven, that’s some good information. Next logical question—how long has it been hurting for?

This was crazy—though I consider myself a person with a high degree of proprioception (it is the foundation of my job, after all), I was beginning to realize that this had been hurting for a few days already. It was just that I was in such a rush to get to each of my appointments on time, I hadn’t realized it was bothering me.

Those two questions were enough for me to bring my awareness of the pain to the front of my mind. But in that moment that I recognized I had the pain, I didn’t know what was causing it. I didn’t know the one thing that would demystify the whole thing—how the pain started.

I finally realized the following day that every time I was riding my bike, I put my right foot down, specifically the ball of the foot, each time I stopped.

It hit me like a ton of bricks, or rather, like a wall of concrete pavement. I ride a bike every day, multiple times a day, stopping multiple times. Each time I was stopping, I was slamming my foot into the ground. Always the same foot. And each time my foot met the pavement--yowie. That was it!

With this information, I was armed with options. To start, I switched which foot I was using. That made a huge difference, since my left foot wasn’t bothering me at all and had no problem absorbing the force of my stop. But I wanted to eventually get my right foot back on track. So every time I put it down, I started to ease into it more carefully. Depending on how well I did, it either felt the same as it did when I first thought, “what’s wrong with my foot?!” or didn’t hurt at all.

This was a simple fix, but it isn’t always so easy. When I’m working on these types of problems with my students, once we figure out what’s causing the pain, there are often a few bio-mechanical habits to change. But troubleshooting and changing movement habits has a bit of a steeper learning curve than simply “if it hurts, don’t do that.” The student needs to learn what muscles and joints aren't doing their job, and begin to educate themselves on how to change their movement. 

Eventually though, this work helps their once chronic pain fade into a distant memory. Then, we get to the good stuff—stronger bodies, with the possibility to do anything they love: hiking, rock climbing, playing pickleball (I know, random, but this one has come up a few times in the last few months!), playing with their kids and grandkids.

You name it, the work we do will help pave the way for a less encumbered, freer life.

Go to the contact page and reach out to book your first session. I’m looking forward to helping you!