Mortons Neuroma

There are many reasons that I am thankful to be a massage therapist. One of the biggest reasons is the help I can give people, including myself. Having specialized in Sports Massage I have seen lots of different injuries. Most of them I have never had, thank goodness, but a couple I have had.

Mortons Neuroma is one I have dealt with on a couple of different occasions. The first occasion was with my own foot. I was doing a lot of track work outs and developed a neuroma in my right foot. If you are wondering what it feels like think hot poker in the ball of your foot right under your middle toe.

It is a very nervy feeling and is kind of like a tooth ache in that it lets up if you quit puttin pressure on it. As you can imagine that is pretty hard to do if you are running, on your feet anyway!

I looked it up, talked to my running coach and fixed it. I taped a piece of folded up napkin onto the bottom of my foot. I had cut out a hole in the middle of the napkin so that it looked like a doughnut and put the hole right on the owie place. It worked like a miracle and I was back on the road.

A couple of years later I had a client that was suffering from pain in the same place on her foot, only on the top of the foot. Her trainer had looked at it, and they could not figure out what the problem was. I took her foot and put it into plantar flexion and low and behold a big bump appeared on the top of her foot between her third and fourth toes.

I told her she had a gangleon cyst and tried to imagine how she got one of those there. Come to find out she had a "foot doctor" scrape her mortons neuroma on the bottom of her foot a couple of years earlier and the scar tissue had caused the cyst. Good ole' surgery ha?

Once they figured out what it was they went in and of course scraped it out and got rid of the cyst.

A year ago a friend of mine emailed me and said she had surgery to get rid of her mortons neuroma. She by the way went to the same "foot doctor" and he told her the only way to get rid of it was to go in and scrape away some of the tissue. Hello that only causes more scar tissue. I asked her if she had ever tried taping or any other preventitive. Nope. Nada. Bummer.

Today in my first four mile loop for my long run I got the old familiar pain in my foot. Above is my brilliant taping job. You know what worked really well? A pad! Yup I just cut a hole in it, stuck it on my foot and taped it to secure it. Ran another five miles and felt great. Like I said the things I learned in massage school are invaluable!

Jalepenos

When we find good places to eat out in Costa Rica I love to share it with the world! I mean I can only think of three that we really have enjoyed, so that is not too much sharing, so this is important.

Jalepenos in Alejuela is the best Mexican food in Costa Rica! The owner lived in New York for 20 years after leaving Columbia and settling in Costa Rica. So the guy really knows how to cook Mexican food. He even uses real cheese and red sauce. He does use the local foods, we all do if we do not want to pay an arm and a leg, but he uses enough authentic Mexican sauces and spices to make it "real".

Spent the day venturing over to the eat out, and joy of joys the used English book store is right around the corner. A great day for sure. Now if we can just knock out the belly bug getting all of us right now it would have been a perfect day. Pretty dang close though.

I almost forgot the bestest part of the day. Finally checked out the new sports store down by the airport. Oh my goodness, I am watering at the mouth for a new bike! I mean to tell you those bikes were beautiful. I think I may have to settle for the really cute Mizuno running shorts I found, more in the budget right now. At least I know where to go when I am ready for my bike.

MASSAGE ADDICT

I am a certified massage addict! I really don't know how I lived bm, or before massage. I did not receive my first massage until I was 34, right before I attended massage school. I told hubby I did not need a massage, they were for stressed or injured people. He finally bought me a one half hour upper body massage at the club for mothers day.

I was pretty apprehensive and when I arrived did not really know what to expect. By the time Sharon was done, I still remember her name, I was sold, addicted and a solid believer in massage.

After the massage hubby took me out to dinner and as I was sitting there feeling like a noodle and drooling and spacing out, I told him that if I could make people feel this good it was the job for me.

If any of my current clients or previous clients are reading this they are laughing their heads off. The only part of my massage that feels good is when I get done. I have tried not working deep, believe it is much harder work for me to work deep, but darn it I just feel a very deep need to "fix it". I love to get in there and really feel the muscles and feel them melt and relax.

But back to my addiction. I am already relaxing because I have a massage scheduled for myself for tomorrow morning. The best part is I just passed the 20 mile a week mark for marathon training and man oh man this massage is going to feel so good, in a really painful kind of way that is. You see my friend who I trade with works a lot like me. The good part of that is I can look forward to injury free training for the next three months.

I better get to bed so I can wake up sooner, get my run done and head to the massage table :)