Goodbye!

To all my readers, especially to the ones who suffer from PTTD and/or other foot and ankle injuries and found this blog in a time of desperation, THANK YOU for sharing in my journey with me.  I learned so much about myself and found your comments as encouraging to me as many of you found my blog to be informative, positive, and uplifting to you.  This will be my last post here.  As my "Something isn't right" post alluded to, there is more to my story.  I started this blog as a graduate student who had turned to running and triathlon to stay in shape and to feed my competitive spirit after my time as a collegiate athlete ended, and then was stopped in my tracks by developing PTTD, having both of my ankles collapse to flat feet, and then requiring reconstructive surgeries.  My personal goal for my recovery was to return to my athletic, active, and healthy lifestyle, and I am proud to say that I did just that.  Over the last couple of years, I took the adventure trip of a lifetime backpacking through Central America, got my 5k time back down to the low thirties and within reach of my pre-surgery times, competed in my first ever cycling competition, began to place highly in my age group in triathlons and even qualified for the 2016 USA Triathlon Age-Group National Championships, and swam competitive times at US Masters National Swimming Championships. Now, people address me as doctor, I'm a college professor, and I have realized that unfortunately, PTTD was never really my problem.  Of the many doctors I saw for my ankle injuries, not a single one could explain to me why someone who was in excellent shape, lead a healthy lifestyle, did not experience a traumatic event, and was not overtraining would suffer from such severe ankle injuries.  My case was marked as 'atypical' and I continued being a medical mystery.  Last summer (2016), during my trip to Thailand, everything continued to get worse and it became really clear that something more was wrong with me. When I returned home, I saw several medical specialists, and resumed physical therapy.  I continued to receive diagnoses from physicians that could not explain my myriad of symptoms, until I had amassed enough diagnostic data (blood tests, x-rays, physical exams) from all of my medical appointments to do the research myself and connect the dots for them.  I discovered that I have an autoimmune disease, an inflammatory arthritis condition in the class of seronegative spondyloarthropathies that includes enthesitis as a key feature.  What is enthesitis?  The easy explanation is when tendons become inflamed near joint insertions.  If you look back to my very first post, "What the heck is PTTD and why do I need surgery?," you will find a picture that shows how the posterior tibial tendon connects to the bony portion of your arch. Upon my first visit to a rheumatologist, my diagnosis was confirmed (and my theory from my research proved to be right) and I began treatment for my autoimmune disease. It also became clear that this was the underlying cause of my ankle problems and every other "sports injury" that I have had since I went to college.

If you find this blog and relate to my story please follow up with your primary care physician for a referral to a rheumatologist BEFORE you have surgery for PTTD.

Wishing you all the best!

Sincerely,

Amanda