Case Study: Simple Overcompensation Can Lead to Complex Idiosyncrasies Last year DASHA teamed with the American Cancer Society at the NYC half-marathon. We had a booth set up with complimentary stretching and massage, and a young man named Paul stopped by the booth. I struck up a conversation with him because we’d both just finished running, and Paul mentioned that he’d recently developed knee and lower back pain. Paul has improper angulation of his foot, where his right foot overpronates, which means it turns outward.
Paul’s gait was off because of that, and running exacerbated the condition: because his foot turned outward, Paul’s hips were out of line, which in turn caused an issue to develop in the knee, tibia and femur. The medial meniscus started to rub improperly, and uneven tension developed in the psoas muscle. This all happened because Paul’s body was compensating for the idiosyncrasy in his foot. Because of the compensation, Paul had a rebound effect in his lower back. He developed a bulge–a miniscule tear in the annulus fibrosis. I treated him with decompression therapy and used a static type of traction to open up the facet joints.
Paul’s lower back pain was completely resolved in seven or eight weeks, and he continued to run; but he still had improper angulation of his foot. That meant the medial meniscus was still grinding when he ran, and he eventually developed a meniscal tear that required surgery. Paul went through prehabilitation therapy with us, had the surgery, and has been coming back to DASHA ever since. His lower back pain is gone. I fitted him for orthotics and his knee condition has drastically improved, though he still occasionally has an issue with it. He’ll always develop something because of his gait, whether the issueis with his back, neck or knee.
Usually we can resolve it with one treatment. A lot of health care providers told Paul he couldn’t run. I am a runner, and I understood how important it was for Paul to keep running. Today he wears his orthotics, he comes in for treatment when he needs it, and we’ve kept him where he wants to be: toeing up at the starting line and running that race.
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