Left ankle pain when walking. Hurts the most when I try to run, tip toe, or jump on my left foot

by Kevin
(Brownsville, TX, USA)

My left ankle pain started about 11 months ago. It was late October of 2013. I was running on the treadmill for 2 miles. It was just a normal routine run. I didn't roll my ankle in any way. I finished my run, showered, and went home. Everything felt fine until when I woke up the next day. I was not able to put pressure on my left ankle.

I first thought, okay... I've sprained my ankle before. It felt just like it, so the pain should be gone within a week or so. few days later, I was able to put some pressure on my ankle and was able to walk with a slight limp, so I went back to work thinking it's going to heal. But it never did.

Okay, so I thought maybe I fractured my ankle some how because I fractured my ankle once when I was in high school, and it took a lot longer to heal, so I decided to walk with a limp and suck it up for a month and a half and see if it heals. But it never did.

Couple months passes by, the pain is still there. I've tried massaging my ankle, did all those ankle injury exercises suggested on those YouTube videos. The pain never went away.

I've finally fed up and went to my Primary Care Physician. She ordered an X-Ray. It came back negative. Nothing is damage with my bones. She assigned me to a foot/joint specialist.

I went to see the specialist, he told me my insurance wouldn't approve for a MRI image. But he said that he has seen this kind of injury before. Told me steroid injection should fix it. So, I paid for the Steroid injection. Gave it a month and I'm still having the pain. Went back to him. He told me PRP injection will definitely fix it. Therefore, again, I paid for the PRP injection, and still my ankle pain still there.


I've decided not to go back to the specialist nor my primary care physician, because I've been going to see them for the past 3 months. I've spent over $2000 just on co-pays and all those injections that's not covered by my insurance. $2000 and 3 months later, I'm still in pain.

I'm currently in the process of requesting for a different PCP through my Medical Insurance.

However, I would like to get an opinion from you. I really do believe something is definitely wrong with my tendons or joints or something. I believe MRI image will show.

Please let me know... I've been in pain and unable to run for the past 11 months. I miss running. Please help.

When I walk, my left ankle hurts but I can take the pain. It's when I run, tip toe, or jump that's when I can feel the sharp pain. The sharp pain is around the top left area of the ball on my left ankle.
When I stand only on my left leg and lean my weight toward front/left of my left food with my foot flat on ground, that's when it hurts the most.

Thank you in advance.

Kevin

RESPONSE

Hi Kevin,

I would agree you need a MRI and the irony here is that you probably could have paid for the MRI for less than the two thousand dollars you spent on worthless injections. I call the injections worthless because your doctor was essentially only "guessing" as to what the problem is and had no definite diagnosis.

I know nothing about you but will assume you are reasonably young and in good health. Your ankle problem started almost one year ago. I think it would be safe to say that if it were a simple ligament or tendon issue, it would have healed by now.

Even though I am only guessing here I would be looking for one of two things. Possibly a small stress fracture in the area that has not shown up on standard x-rays or the possibility of an osteochondritis dessicans which is a break in the cartilage of the talus bone which is the top bone of the foot, that forms the floor of the ankle joint.

It would be those kind of problems that could persist for such a long period of time. That is not to say it could not be a ligament or tendon issue, such as a partial tear of some sort, but unfortunately you are not going to be certain of what is going on without more imaging beyond an x-ray.

Marc Mitnick DPM
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