5 Things Your Doctor Doesn’t Tell You About Foot and Ankle Injury
Here are 5 important things your doctor doesn’t tell you about foot or ankle injury. This information might just be what helps you get to the other side of injury in good shape….
No injury is a good injury…. but a foot or ankle injury? Kind of one of the worst kind. Losing your ability to use your feet puts you on the sidelines of living your life. Its depressing, isolating, frustrating, and challenging in every way. And the worst part is, you don’t get much help from your doctor. They prescribe anti inflammatories and rest. Tell you to wait it out. When you cry in their office, tell them you miss shoes, you NEED to get back out there, you don’t know how to get through this time, you need support…. they shrug their shoulders in their white coat. Even if your doctor is the best in the business… you dont ever seem to get much sympathy back. Its the worst feeling in the world, to be alone in pain, thrown completely out of your life game, and caught in endless cycles of anxiety over all the possible negative side effects of your injury (weight gain, time off work, depression… the list that worries your mind rambles ON). You just want someone to TELL YOU what to expect. To tell you what to do next. To tell you how to handle this. To reassure you that you’ll make it to the other side of injury in one piece.
The unfortunate part is, doctors don’t specialize in this. They DON’T teach you exercises that can help you keep your body in good shape. They don’t give you information on using food to help you heal faster or managing stress to improve physical repair. They just tell you to rest, wait, be patient, and you’ll get there. But sometimes thats not enough.
As a coach who specializes in foot and ankle recovery, I want you to know: THERE IS ANOTHER WAY. You don’t have to wait in worry wishing you had SOMETHING you could do to help your healing. There are strategic steps you can take that can help you be fit, stay positive, and recover fast. It works and it feels SO much better than taking ibuprofen, watching Netflix, and wishing you had a doctor who “gets it”.
I’ll teach you the Injury Recovery System in my online coaching course and guide you through the healing process in once piece. But if you aren’t ready to invest in your own recovery process and would rather spend your hard earned cash paying an expensive doctor to tell you to rest, then here are a few insider facts about healing a foot and ankle injury your doctor hasn’t told you yet.
5 Things Your Doctor Doesn’t Tell You About Foot and Ankle Injury
#1. It takes a heck of a lot longer than 6-8 weeks to heal. So many people assume that within the doctor suggested timeline of 6-8 weeks, they’ll be back out there, walking, kicking butt at life. But what they don’t realize is 100% FULL healing of foot and ankle injuries typically takes a minimum of 6 months (its often more like 1-4 years if they follow the right steps. Sadly, some people never heal properly, and others just dont care to help themselves heal). Exactly the reason I created the Injury Recovery System – to guide members through the LONG process of healing with resources to stay strong over the LONG course of healing.
#2. You are at a risk for future injuries. THIS IS IMPORTANT TO READ (SO DO IT). Getting an injury and recovering from an injury puts you at risk for future injuries. This is due to a few reasons (pay attention!):
- The potential cause (or causes) of the injury was never resolved. Over training, poor nutrition, muscular imbalances, improper movement patterns, weak or immobile muscles, hormone imbalances, or a combination of any potential contributing factors must be addressed in order to prevent future injuries down the road. So lets say you got your first foot injury when not following a balanced training program while preparing to run a marathon. Once you’ve healed you start running again, overtrain, and now are right back to where you started – stuck in a boot, in pain, missing running. Or lets say you always sprain your ankle because you have weak butt and hip muscles. You do your “jane fonda” leg lifts, but going through the motions doesnt properly use the right body parts. You never invest in working with a coach to help you learn HOW to activate and correct your muscular imbalances. So your body stays the same and you keep spraining your ankle over again. Or say you’ve been on a restrictive diet for years and your body has accumulated nutritional deficiencies from so much time without proper fuel. Now if you push your workouts even a little too long or too hard, you get hurt. Its takes forever to recover and you are frustrated that all your friends are out there being active and you cant keep up. Your body needs serious dietary repair and a lot of focus on restoring balance. Those are just a few of the possible contributing factors that must be corrected in order to prevent future injuries from interrupting your life. Yes, sometimes injuries happen through an accident or crazy situation. But if your foot or ankle injury came from an underlying factor like any of the above, you WILL be at major risk for future injuries down the road.
- Time off of your feet has caused muscular weakness, tightness, and atrophy. This should be common sense, but somehow its not. People assume that even if they do “hurt foot workouts” while they are healing, they will be ready to go back to normal once they get clearance from the doctor. Sadly, not true. While Hurt Foot workouts are great, they still haven’t trained your body to 1. BEAR WEIGHT 2. TRANSFER WEIGHT and 3. FUNCTION PROPERLY IN DAILY LIFE (aka standing, squatting, walking, balancing). If you don’t follow a well designed program to re-train your muscles and movement patterns OUT of the non-weight bearing stage and back into weight-bearing reality, you’ll develop muscular imbalances and negative movement habits. These things cause injury.
#3. What you eat can slow down or speed up the healing process. What people dont realize is that nutrition can make or break the healing process. Everything you put into your body has the power to speed up or slow down your ability to come back. Everyone is different and has unique nutritional needs. But there are fundamental dietary steps you absolutely need to take to give your body the fuel it requires to heal fast. I share these essential guidelines and diet principals in my Injury Recovery System. Bottom line? DONT ignore your nutrition while healing.
#4. If you have a lot of anxiety or stress, you wont recover fast. I see this all the time in my virtual Injury Recovery clients. They are juggling a million important priorities, life drama, physical and emotional stress, and fighting slew of other life fires all while trying to heal from an injury (also stressful). They’ve got a head full of anxiety over everything (understandable). Their stress cup is FULL. Its a fact: too much stress WILL stall the healing process. Recovery will take SO much longer if you have high levels of stress in your life. Its essential to have actions and habits you do consistently in your daily life to prevent stress from slowing down your recovery progress. I give you a whole toolbox for managing stress specifically for healing in the Injury Recovery System. (yes I’ve thought of everything you need to heal and put it in this course).
#5. You need to address the mental side of healing in order to come back stronger. When healing, most people focus only on fixing the physical, NOT the mental. They do a million hurt foot workouts and dont even consider how to strengthen the other parts of themselves. As a coach, I try to help my clients see the value and power in training the mind just as hard as the body. Injury is TOUGH and you have to strengthen your mindset to handle it. This involves mindset training (like exercise – FOR YOUR MIND), surrounding yourself with a support community who understands (like all the Injury Recovery members who share your journey), and actively practicing mental habits to keep yourself strong. The injury recovery process can be so scary and the fear of not healing completely keeps your mind in a constant state of worry. So staying positive and optimistic about recovery is extremely challenging (and impossible at times). You really need outside support to keep your head in the right place or you quite literally might lose it. Thats why I created the Injury Recovery System to 1. Give people specific mental strategies for keeping the mind strong and 2. put them in a support community of people who relate to and help their healing journey.
Knowledge is power and when you know more you can heal faster. Those are a few fundamental elements of healing that I’ve helped people use to fix their foot and ankle injury. Did your doctor mention any of these things? Or have you not found any REAL help in your healing journey?
Have you successfully healed from a foot or ankle injury? What is one thing you wish your doctor would have told you about the recovery process? Would love to hear your experience below in the comments.
Looking for someone to actually help you heal your body (and return to the life you love)? I offer virtual injury recovery coaching for clients all over the world. Contact me here and lets get you back out there feeling good.
Love and positive energy,
Caroline
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