Cancer Pain With No Apparent Solution
Mrs B is in her 60s and is fighting for her life. She has a second recurrence of metastatic breast cancer and was recently admitted to rehab after an episode of congestive heart failure and accumulation of fluid around her lungs. She is a determined person who is ready to smile despite her difficult circumstances. She is thin, weak, tired, and has a tube draining malignant fluid from her right lung.
A Better Approach to Tendinitis and Heel or Foot Pain
When Therapy, Injections, and Surgery Don’t Help
Mrs J was in her 60s and came to see me complaining of pain in both heels. She had been an active woman, working full time, going to the gym to exercise 3-4 times per week. Prior to developing pain, she used to walk up and down from the 4th floor where she worked each day as an admininstrative assistant. Roughly 2 years prior to seeing me, she began having pain in her heels. She was seen by an orthopedic surgeon who diagnosed tendinitis in her achilles tendons. He prescribed an anti-inflammatory medication and she had physical therapy with stretching, ice, and ultrasound. She got better for awhile but the pain returned, worse than the first time. The surgeon did cortisone injections into her tendons. The pain improved for awhile and then recurred. Then the surgeon cut her achilles tendons to lengthen them, assuming (I suppose) that the problem was that they were too short! Not surprisingly, her pain didn’t really get better enough to allow her previous activity and function, despite several months of physical therapy.
Why Medicine Needs a New Perspective
I heard the history, and the surgeon’s diagnosis and treatment plan just didn’t add up.