EP #3: Exploring Preventative Measures for Common Sports Injuries

Ever wondered why your feet throb after a game, run, or workout? We've all been there, dealing with the common sports injuries. This episode sets your foot on the right path (pun intended!). Join your hosts, Dr. Lauren Dabakaroff and Jeremy Wolf, as we dissect the causes of these nuisances and reveal preventive measures. Our prime focus: the notorious plantar fasciitis - what it is, why it's so common, and how to dodge it like a pro. We also touch on the importance of the right shoes, warming up, and regular stretching.

Moving beyond the surface, we dive into the realm of self-care and the fascinating world of regenerative medicine.  We underscore the essence of preventative care, including daily stretching routines, to keep your feet happy. If you're battling chronic pain or injury, don't lose hope. Take a step towards healing with the insights from the LMD Podiatry Podcast, we're here to help you get back on your feet, literally!

To learn more, visit: LMDpodiatry.com or contact (954) 680-7133

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the LMD Pediatry Podcast. Trust us to get back on your feet. Here's your host, Dr Lauren Devakarov.

Jeremy: 0:14

Hello, hello everyone, and welcome to episode number three of the LMD Pediatry Podcast. I'm your co-host, jeremy Wolth, and I'm joined by none of your hosts. Dr Lauren, dr Lauren, how you doing today?

Dr. Lauren: 0:28

I'm doing great on yourself.

Jeremy: 0:30

I am doing really, really well. I took up your advice, went and got myself a pair of quality running shoes. Brooks ran my first 5K this weekend, so I'm on that runner's high, if you will. So I'm doing great, yeah, and.

Jeremy: 0:45

I'm excited to get into this because, kind of keeping in theme of the topic that we had last time we were talking about running, obviously, and some of the problems that can cause on the feet Wanted to see if you can go a little bit more in depth about common sports industries and problems related to the feet. Why don't you start off there?

Dr. Lauren: 1:06

Yeah, I'd love to dive into that. I see a lot of sports injury on a daily basis in my office bottom of the foot pain, top of the foot pain, toe pain, ankle pain, leg pain, calf pain, all that kind of stuff. It's either one or two reasons why it happened. It's either like a weekend warrior syndrome, or someone who's completely out of shape just goes and runs for a few miles and then everything is just falling apart. There's spraining and tendonitis, infestitis and all that kind of things. They're in a lot of pain. Or it's someone who is an athlete and they just have this type of excessive wear and tear of a specific joint or specific tendon or a specific structure of their foot and they come in with pain and inflammation and things like that.

Jeremy: 2:01

Okay. So I feel like I'm kind of, at least personally, in the middle of those two things, right, because I am kind of transitioning into more of the athlete, but I am noticing a lot of these minor issues coming up. So, in terms of, I guess it just goes back to what Like stretching.

Dr. Lauren: 2:24

Right. So in general, if you want to, I would like to delve first into prevention.

Dr. Lauren: 2:29

I just told you what causes these injuries, right, step wrong, how to prevent those injuries, right? So if you're like it also depends on the sport. If you're like a rollerblader, an ice skater, a runner, something that requires like repetitive, you know, one-sided motion Sorry, there's a horn deep inside Like repetitive one-sided motion, you want to make sure that, like, the shoe on the deep side is very well padded Sorry, you want to make sure that the shoe on the inside is very well padded, you know, so you don't get any blisters and things like that. If you feel like part of your foot is tired at the end of your workout, you know you should come and get a value. You might need some type of insert, something to correct your foot so you don't overuse a certain part of your foot.

Dr. Lauren: 3:26

Another tip that you can do before and after you know you want to stretch, you know, calf stretching, arch stretching, toe stretching all those things before and after your run or whatever you're doing, and that really does prevent a lot of injuries. And, as I always say, you got to warm up, right? So that's kind of what you should be in your warm up. You need to, you know, just stretch a little bit, stretch different parts of your legs. You know people will stretch their arms too. But when it comes to that type of sport, you know any type of sports injuries. You know just the stretching before and after and wearing the right shoes. You know properly protecting your skin, protecting your joints. You know that's important for preventing all these things from happening.

Jeremy: 4:19

How often should, or how long should, one dedicate to stretching before they get into? I'm sure obviously depends on how intensive you're going to be working out, but generally speaking, like for me again, I keep going back to me because it relates to what I'm doing- now.

Jeremy: 4:34

Your foot. Yeah, for running like before I get, because I typically what I do is I'll take, like you know, a minute maybe and do some toe touches and maybe some calf stretches, but I feel like I'm not doing doing it justice. How long should I be dedicating before I go?

Dr. Lauren: 4:49

A proper stretch is 20 seconds minimum per structure. So if you're stretching your calf you want to spend a minimum of 20 seconds per leg.

Jeremy: 5:03

Okay.

Dr. Lauren: 5:04

And then I would alternate about three reps like three, three reps on each side. So 20 seconds on the right, 20 seconds on the left, 20 seconds on the right, 20 seconds on the left and one more time. That's a total of two minutes, not even so. Now you know. And if you want to stretch other structures like your toes or your or your arch or your hamstrings or your quads, you know it's 20 seconds to get a proper stretch.

Jeremy: 5:35

Okay, good to know what are probably the most common types of injuries you typically see come through.

Dr. Lauren: 5:46

Yeah, go ahead Sorry.

Jeremy: 5:47

No, no related to like sports injuries and things like that.

Dr. Lauren: 5:50

So the most common thing that I literally see in my office every single day is plantar fasciitis. Plantar fasciitis, I know of plant plantar warts.

Jeremy: 6:01

I've never heard of plantar fasciitis.

Dr. Lauren: 6:02

Plantar just means the bottom of your foot. Ah, fasciitis. So there's a structure on the bottom of your foot. It's called a fascia. It's the band that holds up your arch and unfortunately it doesn't stretch. And a lot of people get this A from having a tight calf and hamstring and B from wearing the wrong shoes. So one of the most common causes of plantar fasciitis is a tight calf. So what happens is if you walk for three miles or run for a mile and you did not stretch before, what happens is when the calf is too tight, your heel works extra hard.

Speaker 1: 6:45

Overcompensates.

Dr. Lauren: 6:45

It's bringing it all the way down to the floor and then what happens is the plantar fascia or the band. It gets these little micro tears and that's why it's called fasciitis. It's just inflammation of the arch caused by that micro tearing, because the heel doesn't have any give and you're not. You don't have a long enough leg to bring your foot all the way down, because everything is so tight.

Jeremy: 7:11

Okay, so somebody shows up in your office with plantar fasciitis. What are the common treatments for that ailment? Talk a little bit about the therapy.

Dr. Lauren: 7:23

So typically, depending on how severe the inflammation and pain is, I do a series of two to three steroid injections to the heel anti-inflammatory medication similar to leaving Advil. A lot of stretching, a lot of icing, shoe change, arch support, things like that. Heel pads also help at that stage. And then the other thing that I sometimes recommend if someone is extremely tight, there's this split, a stretching split that I give the patients, and what that does. It actually helps you. It's like a device that you put your leg in and it stretches you for an hour a day. I teach you how to crank it and everything like that. It's for people that just never get a deep enough stretch.

Dr. Lauren: 8:20

So there's different ways to help this kind of move along and it takes about a month, month and a half, for it to resolve when it initially happens. It's very common practice amongst other podiatrists. There are more holistic things to try. The whole goal is to get rid of the inflammation, because you do have the micro tears in your arch and they're only going to heal if you take away the inflammation, and the best way to do that is to not use your foot. But we can't do that today because everybody loves to run to publics and run after their kids, and I can't stop anyone.

Jeremy: 9:04

I stopped running after my kids several years ago. Don't be unreal with you.

Dr. Lauren: 9:11

Mark, I had one guy. He tripped over his kids toy and tore his Achilles.

Jeremy: 9:17

Oh no.

Dr. Lauren: 9:17

Yeah.

Jeremy: 9:20

That's my brother. Recently he was playing basketball. He's like I think he's like 28, now approaching 30. No-transcript basically ripped I think it was his Achilles and tore it like very, very badly to the point where he almost you know he just killed over almost, almost passed out from the pain, was out of commission for months upon end. So that's no good. So, speaking of that right the Achilles, if somebody shows up with a bad, a bad situation for the Achilles here, what, what's typically the do they? I guess they have to do kind of some kind of surgery to kind of reset it. How does that?

Dr. Lauren: 9:51

It depends how big that. If it's a sprain, I usually put them in a boot. If it's a tear, I always recommend surgery. It's always better to directly you know, primarily repair the tendon basically, and that just means to sew it back together. But when you do that you have your, your encruches for about six weeks Now to prevent that from happening, right so?

Jeremy: 10:16

much.

Dr. Lauren: 10:17

Achilles tendonitis right, which is the tendon in the back of your leg. A lot of times people have that tendonitis again because they don't stress. The caps are tight. It's usually at, you know, I see it in the older. It ranges from young to old, but it's. It's just. It's the epidemic of Immobility. You know, people aren't Working out, they're not active, they're not, you know, going to the gym. Even kids. I see kids with like the tightest calves ever. It's because they're sitting and playing video games all day long, you know, and and and then they go and they do PE and then they get injured and then, whereas other kids do not, you know. So it's all kind of related.

Dr. Lauren: 11:06

It's very but you would have never, your cap would have never gotten that tight if you didn't, if you were more active, you know, if you, you know, went to the gym one for a walk stretch, that home went to the yoga studio, you know, just did something, you know I mean. So that's kind of where a lot of the issue happened, a lot during COVID, you know, all these people were getting injuries because they were. They were like, oh, let me go out for a walk in fresh air instead of isolating myself, and that's when they would get. You know, they. They got all these things, all these problems happening.

Jeremy: 11:42

Yeah off. Often does back, though, to just and not just what you do and most things when it comes to taking care of yourself, preventative care, right. Just doing the, doing the daily habits, doing the things that most people just don't like to do, until you get hurt. You're like, oh, I should have, should have prepared better for that one.

Dr. Lauren: 11:58

I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm at fault for this too. Why you like? I know I have to stretch every day. So I'm like I never stretch. So how do I? I incorporate it into my tooth, my brushing, my teeth. I incorporate, I have to incorporate it into my routine incorporate, stretching into it, so killing two birds with one stone your calves at the same time.

Dr. Lauren: 12:20

I programmed it in my head that when I brush my teeth, right after I finished brushing my teeth, I stretch for like I Do like 20 seconds, about two or three times on each leg. So I've gotten in like two minutes of stretching in the morning and then I usually I do it at night. Sometimes I'm tired, I forget, but I know that the second I don't stretch, my back hurts, my feet hurt. So that's kind of where I'm at, you know. So it's also about like educating the patients long term. Like Canvas, can I fix your problem? Can I make your heel pain and your leg pain go away a hundred percent? Can it come back? Come back? Yes, it can always come back, and you have to do self-care. You know you have to take care of yourself.

Jeremy: 13:05

Yeah, for for sure. I know you also wanted to talk. I don't know how any how this applies to the things we've been discussing, but I know you wanted to touch upon regenerative medicine a little bit before we wrap up.

Dr. Lauren: 13:17

So just to hit a little bit. So what I just described is when someone initially comes in with, you know, plantafasciitis, chelotinitis, and they have that initial sprain or strain on their tendon and fascia and you know sometimes what happens is they patients wait way too long before they come to my office and then I have diagnostic imaging in the office, like an ultrasound for example, and I can see that they already have like a ridiculous amount of scar tissue in those areas and I already know that they're not going to respond to the regular pills and shots and things like that steroid injections. This is why, you know, for chronic injuries and chronic tendonitis and chronic fasciaeitis, things that you know have not responded to the traditional conservative measures, there's a whole new area of regenerative medicine.

Dr. Lauren: 14:16

A lot of doctors are doing it I do it in my office as well and what it is? It's ways to re-heal the area and bring, I guess, healthy new cells to re-heal the area and fix it. So when something is chronic, you have to put it into an acute phase and get it to re-heal again. And I do that with a combination of shockwave therapy as well as stem cell injections. I specifically use Bortons jelly injections and it's like stem cells that are harvested from umbilical cords, that are donated by, you know, women's placenta, and it's all like totally legitimate and safe. And it's amazing and I really see how it really helps the patients who've been suffering pain for many, many years when they don't respond to you know the regular steroid injections and adbill and ibuprofen, for example.

Jeremy: 15:22

I have to ask you because I had a guest on the Good Neighbor podcast recently. He's I don't know if you know Dr Mark Jaffe. He's a rheumatologist.

Dr. Lauren: 15:29

Oh yeah, we're buddies.

Jeremy: 15:31

All right. So he told me we were talking about stem. I asked him if he does stem cell treatment in his office. I don't do stem cells here, he said but what we do for certain issues in the knee. There is a material, a jelly, that comes this is so fun to the clip from the podcast. It's funny he said the jelly from the comb of a rooster, like the red thing on the top of the head of the rooster. There's some kind of material in there that's found in small traces in the body already and sometimes when that, when there's friction or when it wears down, they'll take that and actually inject it over a series of several months into the knee and he's had a great success with that. So I don't know if you've ever heard of that before and whether or not that applies to the feet.

Dr. Lauren: 16:08

Yeah, you can harvest it from a lot of different things.

Jeremy: 16:12

Okay.

Dr. Lauren: 16:13

So you know so, so it's not just the rooster. Yeah, sometimes it's harvested from human tissue, sometimes it's harvested from pigs, you know, in this case from roosters, and that's the first time I've ever heard of that.

Jeremy: 16:28

Very interesting. It was very, very interesting for sure Funny guy.

Dr. Lauren: 16:31

I love Dr Jaffe.

Jeremy: 16:33

Yeah, he really is. So, yeah, we could probably do. We'll definitely talk more. We'll do another segment, for sure, or several, on regenerative regenerative medicine. And then, because that's a whole other topic all into itself, so anything else you want to share before we wrap up.

Dr. Lauren: 16:50

No, I just want to let everybody out there know that there is, there are solutions to your pain and if you have pain, you know, just know and feel in your hearts that there is, there are people out there that care, that can help you, and that's really what the Good Neighbor podcast is all about, right?

Jeremy: 17:10

Absolutely Connecting people, community supporting local businesses all that good stuff for sure. So, dr Lauren, always a pleasure being in your company. So I will bid you farewell and look forward to seeing you on the next episode. And everybody, Thanks for tuning in and we will see you guys next episode of the LMD Pediatry podcast. Everyone, have a wonderful day.

Speaker 1: 17:35

Thank you for listening to the LMD Pediatry podcast. For more information, visit davyfootcarecom. That's daviefootcarecom, or call 954-680-7133.