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A Rather Large Update


Man, I have been on an adventure (if waiting for things to happen one month at a time can be called an adventure).

I got an MRI in mid-May, and found out I had the following problems:
  1. Chronic tendonitis in my peroneal tendons (not surprised) with some possible subluxation (movement) of the tendons out of their proper placement (yuck).
  2. Inflammation in the front part of my ankle joint
  3. Bursitis in the bursa located behind the Achilles
  4. A small tear in my Achilles (?!)
Basically, my ankle was a hot mess of inflammation from overuse. We're all shocked, I know.

 

I discussed the results with my PT and podiatrist, and the latter decided that she wanted me to get a surgeon's opinion (as she no longer does surgery). I ended up going back to the first podiatrist I'd seen when this first started a thousand years ago, and he decided the best thing for me to try at this point would be a PRP injection.

PRP stands for platelet rich plasma. They take some of your blood, centrifuge it to separate the red cells from the platelets and plasma, and inject the platelet rich plasma back into you (in my case, it would be directly into my peroneal tendon). I have started lovingly referring to this as my "lizard" or "superhero" shot (or maybe supervillain, like The Lizard from Spiderman). Because this is new science, and stem-based (though it doesn't use stem cells, only my own blood), insurance doesn't cover it, so I had to make a long and hard decision about whether I want to spend the money to try it.

In the end, I decided to go ahead and do it, and was scheduled to get my PRP in mid-June (that's a month wait from the MRI, in case you're keeping track). I went in to get my PRP and...they couldn't draw my blood. I'm not kidding. They tried 4 times and had to give up, so I couldn't get the injection. (Was I already superhuman? A zombie? Dehydrated? Who knows).


At any rate, because I'm apparently difficult and "might need to be sedated" for the blood draw (what?!), they ended up referring me to a stem cell institute in town, where this is their specialty.

Good things: As mentioned above, this is what they do, so no problems (in theory) with a blood draw. They have more advanced equipment and the doctor has been performing this procedure for awhile. Extra bonus: it was going to cost less than the first guy.

Bad things: I had to wait a whole month again to try it.

Fast forward to this past Tuesday, and I have successfully (finally) received a PRP injection, and am back in the boot for at least two weeks. After that, its back to good 'ole PT and hopefully I'll be back dancing in a couple of months!

And NO, they did not need to sedate me (seriously, wtf?)



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Comments

  1. KiraliaJuly 17, 2016 at 10:43 PM

    Oh, the ancle of doom in deed! Hopefully the lizardshot works wonders and the situation starts to resolve it self. :)

    ReplyDelete

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