Rest, better shoes, gap lacing, insoles, icing, iburofen and stretching are considered the basic treatment for the inflammation of the tendons, but I’d been seeing this kinesiology tape stuff in various sporting goods stores and I’d had it recommended to me. So I figured why not?
Kinesiology tape is a thin, stretchy, elastic cotton strip with an acrylic adhesive. Therapeutic kinesiology tape that can benefit a wide variety of musculoskeletal and sports injuries, plus inflammatory conditions.
Kinesiology tape is almost identical to human skin in both thickness and elasticity, which allows kinesio tape to be worn without binding, constricting or restriction of your movement.
Kinesiology tape is an that is used for treating athletic injuries and a variety of physical disorders. For the first decade after its introduction practitioners in Japan were the main users of the therapeutic kinesiology tape. By 1988 the tape had been adopted by Japanese Olympic and professional athletes before spreading across the world.
You would have noticed that more an more professional athletes use kinesiology taping improve their sporting performance, prevent injury and allow them to return to sport quicker.
Sounds good, right? I purchased Performtex brand, because it was $12.99 a roll at Dick’s Sporting goods while all other brands were $19.99. We’ll see if that makes a difference or not!
I Googled how to apply the tape for extensor tendonitis, and came up with this video:
Hmm, could this actually be EASY?
Unrolling it!
This method calls for 2 pre-cut, full width strips.
Okay, it’s a little crooked.
Wrapped around my foot.
The application wasn’t as easy as they make it look in the video. Getting the paper off the back was a bit of a pain, as it shredded in some parts, but all in all it wasn’t difficult at all. I’m going to wear it for a few days, and hopefully get a short run in before I come back to report on the results!
I have been informed rather rudely that it was inconsiderate of me to not follow up. I apologize, it was an honest mistake. Yes, the tape helps considerably! It helped me heal up rather quickly and between that and the way I now lace my shoes, I haven’t had a re-occurence of the problem. I also used it later for my shoulder when I was having some issues and it also helped. I haven’t needed it in quite some time! Love this stuff!
You may have noticed I didn’t review July’s box. There wasn’t anything wrong with July’s box, but it was sort of “meh” so I decided to skip it. Here’s Josh tasting the squeezy bag of oatmeal mush:
Anyhoo, August’s box totally made up for it! Here’s the box, just opened:
Look at all this STUFF!!!
Do I spy a full sized bag of candy? Why, yes!
KIND Healthy Grains Popped Salted Caramel
Hey KIND? You had me at “salted caramel”. I’ve had KIND bars before and always enjoy them, but I hadn’t seen this kind before. (Get it? Kind?) This is basically a granola bar, but it’s not too sweet, has a great texture, and 100% whole grains. I love alternative grains, and this bar has SIX: oats, sorghum, millet, amaranth, quinoa and buckwheat. I would definitely buy these again. Om nom nom!
Enlightened Roasted Broad Beans
Uh, roasted bean snacks? Tons of protein? HELL YES! These were seriously delicious and hit all my notes: salty, nutty, crunchy AND healthy. A nearly perfect snack! If I can’t find these at a local store, I plan on using my Love with Food points to buy some. I wanted to eat them so badly I barely remembered to take a pic!
Fruity Pie – Apricot and Almond
Anything that combines dried apricots and almonds cannot be bad. And it wasn’t, it was delicious! Sort of like a Fruit Roll Up but in disc format. Mmmm.
Go Organics Apple Hard Candies
We got an entire bag of these! The only bad part is that they’re apple flavored, which isn’t my favorite, but they taste a lot like apple cider, like REAL apple cider. I gave these to the Hubs.
479 Degrees Sea Salt Popcorn
This was super yummy. In the end, though, it’s just salted popcorn. Really yummy salted popcorn! (As you can see I couldn’t wait to tear into this.)
Wild Friends Chocolate Coconut Peanut Butter
*sigh* I wanted so much to love this. You could definitely taste the coconut and the chocolate, but dang it if it wasn’t grainy. There’s a reason I stick with my mainstay, Skippy. It was good, but just not for me.
La Panzanella Croccantini Artisan Italian Crackers – Rosemary
I’m sorry to say this, but I took one bite of these and fed the rest of them to Bingley. He really enjoyed them, though!
Stash Lemon Rooibos Iced Herbal Tea Powder
Made The Hubs try this, since I’ve had rooibos before and it wasn’t my thing. (I’m a total tea snob, and rooibos is not true tea!) He made it and was sort of neutral on the flavor, so I took a sip. Basically it tasted like lemon water. Not bad, just not amazing.
All in all, a great box! Can’t wait to try September’s!
Do YOU want to try Love with Food? Use my referral code:
“Are you done writing this stupid blog yet, mommy?”
As you probably all know, this was the year I tried running. Until this year, I’d always hated it. It was hard. It made me breathe funny. DID NOT WANT.
Well, I tried it again this year, after reaching my goal weight and doing a lot of weight training. And, I actually LIKED it. I had cheap shoes and running pants I bought used at the thrift store, I made myself a running belt and got into the fluorescent clothes. I started C25K and joined the Adventure Runs with my walking group buddy Sharon. I ALMOST ran a solo 5K. Then something happened. My foot hurt. It had this weird popping sensation. I thought it might be a stress fracture (it wasn’t). I though it might be a Morton’s Neuroma (it most likely is). I stopped running to heal up, and I realized: I missed it. It’s totally not easy and it took me a while to figure out what I could and could not eat beforehand, and at times, my running buddy Josh and I dripped sweat on a 90-degree Saturday afternoon (which I mostly hated), but I missed it.
On July 25th I completed my first 5K+ when I completed the 4H Mud Run, after almost 6 weeks of not running AT ALL. We walked most of it, but we finished, damn it! And I realized my running shoes were pretty much ruined. Which was fine, because I think I probably should have thrown them away about 4 months ago, and they probably contributed to my foot problem! So, an easy discussion with The Hubs decided the matter: I was going to get fitted for a good, proper pair of running shoes. Since I had a $30 gift certificate for R-Gear at my local Road Runner Sports (creators of the Adventure Run), and since I was familiar with the store to begin with, I decided we’d go there.
Now, I was nervous. Not only am I terrible when it comes to spending money on myself, I knew it would be an elaborate process to get fitted for shoes, then decide which pair to buy, and leave without spending what felt like a small fortune. I needn’t have worried!
We arrived at my local Road Runner Sports around 2:30 and were immediately approached by an incredibly friendly employee who asked us if we were looking for anything in particular. I immediately said I was interested in getting fitted for shoes, and that it was something I’d never done before and that I was a bit nervous about it. He very kindly reassured me that it was no big deal, and that their fitting computer, called ShoeDog, would take about ten minutes to figure out what sort of shoes would best work for me. He put my name on the waiting list, which was only about a 20-minute wait, and The Hubs and I browsed while we waited.
When my name was called, a friendly woman named Linda greeted me next to a workstation complete with a treadmill, a computer with a large touchscreen monitor, and some two-padded squishy looking thing on the side. Linda quickly described to me what we would be doing, and the first step was taking off my shoes and socks. I stepped on a small footpad on the floor, where I had to stand still for 30 seconds while the computer read my pressure points. The machine popped up a display that quickly showed me that I put a lot of pressure on the outside of my left foot, and moderate on my right heel, but that I had nice, high arches. Then Linda had me step on the treadmill, still barefoot, and jog at my pace for 30 seconds while two cameras captured video of my feet hitting the belt. That was really cool, because I could actually see that my ankles have very little flexibility from side to side (which is good when you run) and that my feet bend outward towards my pinky toes just slightly, but that wasn’t much to worry about, so it was recommended that I get a neutral shoe (as opposed to a stability shoe) with a level 4 cushion in a size 9.5 (the cheap Nikes I’d been wearing are 8.5, and I think their snug fit was what contributed to my foot problem) with a B width, which is normal width.
Next up was fitting me for custom insoles. Linda put two flat insoles into an oven, which warmed them to make them pliable. Then she had me step on that two-padded squishy looking thing, which turns out was to help form the insoles. One foot at a time, she had me stand up straight onto the comfortably warm insole, press with my heels, then press down onto her fingers with my toes as hard as I could. This molded the insoles to my foot, and showed us just how high my arches actually are!
I had to fill in my information on the touchscreen, and then Linda handed me a pair of comfy socks to test out while I was trying on shoes, and led me over to the benches where I would meet Marcus. Marcus, like everyone else, was incredibly friendly and had a penchant for singing Barry White. He adeptly grabbed a few pairs of shoes, inserted my custom insoles, and had me try them on. I started with a pair of Brooks, which did feel fairly comfy, but not “right” (says the girl who’s never owned real running shoes before). Next he had me try on a pair of Asics, which felt great when I was sitting on my butt on the bench, but were not to my liking when I actually stood up.
The first pair I tried on: Brooks.
Not a problem at all for Marcus! He brought out a pair of Sauconys, and while I didn’t feel like these were “the ones”, it was a vast improvement from the previous pair. They had a lot of cushion in the ball of the foot, which I liked. The floor of the store is concrete, but you’d never be able to tell with these shoes on. Marcus, not satisfied with my response to those, brought out yet a third pair, promising more cushion than the pair I had on. I slid the new shoes on, laced them and stood up. It was like walking on a cloud! I said as much, and the woman next to me who was also being helped by Marcus, asked him to grab her a pair, too! (She bought them!)
“The ONES” Saucony Triumph ISOs
Marcus was satisfied with my happiness with my Sauconys (Triumph ISO), so we wrapped things up and checked out, grabbing two packs of cushy running socks as well! I checked out, parted ways with Marcus, and left with a smile on my face. All in all, it wasn’t terribly costly, either! Running shoes generally last between 300-500 running miles. Since I don’t plan on running more than a 5K at a time, and at that, no more than 3X a week, that’s fewer than 10 miles a week, giving me between 30-50 weeks, or about a year. The insoles are supposed to last 1,000 miles, so I won’t need to replace them for quite a bit longer. And socks? Well, socks aren’t really that expensive. I definitely spent less today than it would cost me to join Planet Fitness with their Black Card membership for the same period of time. (Do the math yourself!) And, having good running shoes will definitely help prevent injuries in the future. And since I have two, maybe three 5Ks in my future, I need to take good care of my feet, right?!
All in all, my experience at Road Runner Sports today was extremely positive! Maybe next I’ll get lucky and win a free pair at the next Adventure Run in August.
The bad news: extensor tendonitis!
Extensor tendonitis is basically inflammation of the tendons that run along the top of the foot.
I Googled how to apply the tape for extensor tendonitis, and came up with this video:
A Measured Life 