Over the past year and a half I've tried several different therapies and therapists in my quest to recover from a calf strain that has turned into a chronic issue. In this time I've learned a few things:
1. Therapy that is causing you more pain is not for you. It's good for a therapist to believe in thier treatment and to be passionate about their work, but if the treatment is causing you more pain then you started with (by the time I finally broke up with my last therapist, I had pain not only in my calves, but my knees and back as well) then it's time to move on to something else. Which leads me to the next thing I learned:
2. Only you know your body. Sure, doctors and therapists know how the body works, and they know solutions to certain problems. But not everyone is the same, and not everyone responds the same way to a treatment that may have been successful for others. In the end only you can choose what's best for you, and only you can actually feel how your body is responding to treatment. If you've given a treatment a certain amount of time and you are not seeing results, you need to stop and assess how much more time and money you are willing to waste if you continue only to find out it doesn't work.
3. Don't take "no" for an answer. I had one therapist who gave me all of one exercise, told me I would be in chronic pain for the rest of my life, then sent me on my merry way with out so much as a follow-up appointment to see if the one exercise she did bother to give me had any effect. There's almost always at least some form of treatment that will bring at least some relief. We are complex organisms that can compensate for just about every injury. Where there is a wll, there is a way, you just have to continue searching for the correct path.
4. Refocus. My goal in the long term is still to do another Ironman. But in the short term I will be concentrating on sprint distance this season. And even though my run is lacking, it is the swim and bike I will focus upon since I am very limited in distance and speed in the run (for now).
So, how did I get here?
1. Incorrect shoes - I got suckered into thinking to be a "good" runner I had to force myself to be a forefoot striker, even though it's not my natural gait, and bought shoes accordingly; needless to say, things didn't go well
2. Gait retraining - in itself not a bad idea, everyone can always improve their gait, but forcing a dramatic change that instead of causing less pain, causes more pain somewhere else is a bad idea (I've read several studies that indicate that the Pose method is a major contributor to calf injury)
3. Not listening to my body - I decided my race schedule was more important so I pressed on, instead of just missing races I've suffered over 2 seasons now
I still have yet to find that perfect combination of treatment methods to get me where I want to be, but at this point I am at least making progress, even if I am going two steps forward and one step back at a time, but I have a much higher degree of confidence that I am finally on the right path. Above all else, I am listening to my body this time around. So far this season I've only done one race, a short criterium, but despite being somewhat undertrained I did manage to place 3rd in the Women's 3/4 race, with no calf pain during the race, so at least I'm off to a decent start....
