Diagnosis

My visit with Dr. Bibighaus went very well. He was a great doctor with a history as a runner and seemed to be the perfect person to go see. He felt around on each of my ankles and had me move them in different directions. He noted that my left ankle has less range of motion than the right and decided to do an x-ray. The x-ray did not show any problems so he said that he believes that the ankle is still weak from the bad ankle sprain I suffered last year. Sprains such as these are hard to get over. He said what I am experiencing now is essentially an overuse injury of a weak ankle.

Dr. Bibighaus prescribed me Celebrex as an anti-inflammatory and drew out a device he told me to make that will help strengthen my ankle. It is basically a piece of plywood 12 inches in diameter with half of a wooden ball attached on the bottom. He said to stand on it and rotate it around so the edge of the plywood touches all the way around and it will gradually strengthen that ankle. I found an illustration of this advice on the internet if you want to check out this link. It is the figure 7 -- the one called the "wobble".

I asked him about Osteo-biflex and he told me it is worth a try. He stated that he takes it himself for arthritis and thinks it makes a difference but there was no solid research that confirms it could help me as a runner. Have any of you out there tried it? It is not cheap so I hesitate to buy some buy someone at work told me it would be really good for all of the miles I am putting in.

Most importantly, he told me I can start back running Monday, as long as I use caution and stop if my ankle hurts. He told me to ice it after each run and said I was "braver than him" when I told him I take ice baths!

So, YEA!!!! It is not anything serious and hopefully I can get back on track Monday with only missing the one week of running. The ankle is a bit sore still but I am hoping the device and this medicine will help it come along. Dr. Bibighaus did say that he would be concerned if my ankle continued to cause me problems. He told me the next step would be physical therapy and, if that didn't help, an MRI to see if I needed surgery to repair the ligament. But I am thinking positive that the steps he gave me are going to take care of it!

I bought an extra water bottle holder for my mountain bike. On the long rides I find I want a little more than water. This way I can have a bottle for water and one for a sports drink. I am going out Sunday afternoon and plan to do a lot of riding on the 9 miles of trails at Elvis Presley Park. It is going to be a cooler weekend! YES!!!

P.S. > I have always gotten Celebrex confused with Viagra for some reason so I was taken aback for a second when he first told me he was going to give me some samples! I imagine I had a look of surprise for that second but thankfully he didn't notice!