I dropped a piano on my foot. Will I run again? That is s a great question and that is what we’re talking about today on the Doc On The Run Podcast.
Today’s episode actually comes from a comment posted on one of the Doc On The Run YouTube videos and the video that we watched when he posted this question was, “Will I run again after broken metatarsal surgery?”
The viewer asked, and he said exactly, “I dropped a piano on my foot. Will I run again?” And when I heard that, what came to mind for me was thinking about automobile accidents. If somebody is posted a video on an auto repair channel and said, I drive a GMC Yukon, I was in an accident. Is it still drivable? Well, that depends. Did you hit a mailbox when you were leaving your driveway and you like left a scratch on the driver’s side door? Or did you roll it on the freeway running off the side of the highway? Very different pictures, right? Still an automobile accident.
If you drop a piano on your foot, maybe it would break your pinky toe. Maybe it would completely crush your foot. Totally. I had no idea and so when I read this, I thought, because this was about a question on the video, “Will I run after broken metatarsal surgery?” I thought this person was being facetious and that it was a joke. What I said was, “I don’t know.” I think it would be very difficult to run with a piano on your foot because I don’t even know if the piano is off his foot yet or not.
Again, I thought this was a joke. I wasn’t trying to be a jerk. I wasn’t trying to upset him, and he then replied and said that no, he had a third metatarsal, the middle one, this bone right here, that he had a clear break halfway through along the shaft. So basically, I’m guessing somewhere around here. And then he added some additional details saying that he’d seen an orthopedist, that they said there was no need for surgery.
He had been out of the boot and then basically it sounded like the doctor at that point, after this thing had, I guess, gotten better based on the orthopedist evaluation or x-rays or something, that basically the doctor said goodbye to him and kind of blew him off. And so, he was frustrated.
I’m sure that my comment, not understanding this was a real question, also frustrated him more. I know that it can be very frustrating when you’re not getting the same information that you need from a doctor. But what I didn’t really understand was why he got so upset with me and then he sent a reply and he more or less demanded to know what my recommendation would be, given that he had given me more information and more detail in his additional comments that he added.
I basically just said, because I had said, “I can’t give you more information and you dropped a piano on your foot. I don’t know. I can’t make any recommendation for you.” And he took that as an open invitation that I would do a consultation over YouTube comments or something. So, he added this additional detail saying they’d broken the third metatarsal and wanted to know why I wasn’t giving him advice. And I said, “Well, I’m not your doctor and even if I was your doctor, I would not base on the amount of information you gave me as a YouTube comment, to make a recommendation.”
Like if any of you watching this, listening to this, whatever, actually asked me for a consultation, whether over phone or over webcam or in-person, they’re all an hour minimum. And I ask you a lot of questions because I want to know exactly what happened to you, exactly what it feels like now, exactly what has happened between today and when you broke it, when you got injured, what it felt like before you got injured. And based on those things, I have a pretty good track record of helping people get back to running really quickly.
But I need that information. I cannot help you along that path. If I don’t know what has happened so far. And so, I never heard from him after that, not surprisingly, but I basically was very clear. I was trying to be respectful, just saying, I’m not your doctor and I don’t know what’s happened with you and other than the information provided, I just don’t have enough information.
The things that you have to know, what you really need to think about and the things you need to ask your doctor, when you see them, particularly if the doctor is kind of blowing you off, like this guy got blown off by his orthopedist is that you need to know, is the bone really healed enough that I can run on it? What do I have to do to maintain my running fitness to get back to running as the bone is healing? What can I do to prevent the bone from healing? What kind of workouts would I do that would prevent the bone from healing so you can avoid those workouts. And what is it that actually causes re-injury when you’re like mostly healed when that little crack that was on there from dropping the piano on it, you really want to know what is the riskiest thing I can do so that I won’t do it.
What is the worst thing I can do so that I won’t do it and what is the best thing I can do to make sure that it gets stronger and continues to progress while I maintain my running fitness. If you ask those kinds of questions of a doctor, you should be able to get back to running. But that is something to ask the doctor who evaluates you. And without all the information the other doctors had, no doctor can help you figure that out.
So, think about the things that get you from point A of injury to point B of running without pain. And think about all the things you need to do to focus on to maintain your running fitness, get the bone stronger, and not re-injured again along that path. If you do that, you should be able to get back to running.
If you want to know more about those strategies I use to help runners actually do that when they get fractures of the metatarsals, it’s all in the Stress Fracture Masterclass. The exact same strategies I teach to physicians at medical conferences when I go lecture. You can get it for free if you go to www.docontherun.com/stressfracturemasterclass. So come sign up and I’ll see you in the training.
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