Hey BBM Crew,
This is a long post, but I promise you will find it interesting and encouraging!
Just want to start off by saying that so much of your content has been truly life changing! About 5 years ago, I started struggling with plantar fasciitis and, unfortunately, due to some less than helpful advice from doctors I was seeing, the PF got worse. The doctors were telling me to stay off my feet and rest as much as possible. As a result, I developed really bad kinesiopbobia which led to the plantar fasciitis getting worse in terms of pain. Because of that, I became extremely sedentary. I stopped working out and I significantly decreased my daily walking and standing (thinking that more rest would cure me). Over the next couple years, I became so weak and detrained that it got to the point where I had to use crutches everyday just to be able to get around, walk, stand, etc. In addition to the plantar fasciitis, I had developed severe pain all throughout my feet and ankles. Though I didn’t know it at the time, I had developed extreme tendinopathy in my feet and ankles. They were no longer able to support my own bodyweight without being in extreme pain. I was 24 years old at this time. I was living in a different state at the time, so I decided to move back home with my parents. Upon moving home, I started seeing a bunch of new doctors and had a ton of different testing/imaging done. All kinds of bloodwork, X-rays, MRI’s, physical examinations, etc. No matter what they did, they could never find anything wrong with me. I had no clue what was wrong with me at the time. I thought I had some type of autoimmune disease. But I got tested for that and it came back negative as well. At this point I was totally disabled, I couldn’t work, I couldn’t go to school, nothing. In a last ditch effort, I decided to give physical therapy one last try (I had tried it before, but that particular therapist wasn’t able to help me). During the first appointment with this new therapist, I explained to him my situation and without even blinking an eye he said that he could definitely help me get healthy again. He said we need to focus on getting you stronger. I had seen so many doctor’s at this point, but he was the first one to ever say that. So over the course of 6-12 months, I was going to therapy every week, multiple times a week. In that time period, this PT and an athletic trainer were able to get me off the crutches (I’d been on crutches for 1.5 years straight prior to seeing him). My strength was increasing, my pain was decreasing, my functional ability to walk and stand was improving. I went from being fully disabled, to partially disabled. I was getting better slowly but surely. Eventually though, I hit a wall. The PT and AT were primarily relying on bodyweight exercises, bands, and light dumbbells and they were not able to effectively progressively load me beyond that point. So it was at that time that I decided to research strength training. Long story short, I came across Starting Strength material, tried their methods, ran into a bunch of problems/injuries, found out about BBM material, ditched the SS methods, studied your guy’s methods and started to see great results in my training. This was happening in 2020/2021. 2021 was when I really started using your guy’s templates. As I have been training using your guy’s templates, I have made amazing progress in my health. As I have gotten stronger, my tendinopathy has improved. I am at the point now where I am very close to being fully recovered and no longer disabled, but I still have work to do. Oh and I forgot to mention, that in late 2021 I came across your guys’ article on tendinopathy. After realizing that it was perfectly describing what I was going through (except my situation was way more extreme) I finally started to understand my situation and why strength training was the only thing that ever seemed to improve my situation.
I wanted to share all of this because I am interested in a pain and rehab consultation with you guys. I have made a ton of progress on my own, but there has been a lot of trial and error. I often run into problems that I don’t quite know how to handle. and I feel I could benefit from some professional guidance. I feel like I’m about 8-12 months away from being able to fully recover and get back to “normal”, but I think I need some help getting there. Do you guys think that I would be a good candidate for pain rehab consult? Do you think you would be able to help someone in my specific situation? If so, I am pretty much ready to get signed up and go for it.
Thanks BBM Crew!