What have vitamins got to do with my sore foot?

When we consider chronic musculoskeletal pain, we have to think of the big picture. Often the body struggles to respond to treatment because it doesn’t have the tools it needs to heal. One of those tools is nutrients.

Leena’s foot pain!

I once saw a patient, let’s call her ‘Leena’, with a pain in her foot that she had had for ages. She was in her early 50s, an officeworker who was fit and active. In good shape.

Leena presented to me with a pain in the top of her foot. There was no obvious incident that caused the pain, yet it had been present for months. After a process of elimination through assessment and consideration of footwear and faulty foot mechanics the problem seemed quite straightforward. The pain was referred from a muscle in her shin called extensor digitorum longus (not that you care), let’s call it EDL. Anyway the point is that this muscle – and this foot pain – is not a complicated problem for a Myotherapist to resolve. It is a complaint that I see often that normally begins with some incorrect footwear and persists even after the offending footwear has been rectified. A few treatments and the pain is gone.

A couple of treatments and the pain was sorted.

Well, Leena’s pain was no different. A couple of treatments and the pain was sorted.

Until … two or three weeks later she returned with the same pain.

Hmmmm? Okay. So have you changed your footwear?

‘No.’

Have you started some new exercise?

‘No.’

Experienced an injury that you know about?

‘No. The pain just turned up again.’

Okay. So I fixed it again. Again a treatment or two. Fine.

Then four weeks later, Leena is back. Same pain.

Hmmm . . .

I decided to continue with a process of elimination. I knew where the pain was coming from. I could resolve it. The pain was not from a bone spur or stress fracture or something else that might require a scan, so we weren’t heading down that track just yet.

What I recalled from study was that when the pain is referred from muscle or tendon then one of the causes for the pain failing to resolve could be a lack in certain vitamins and minerals. So I asked Leena ‘How is your diet?’

‘Very good,’ she replied.

Turns out Leena ate plenty of fruit and vegetables, very little if any junk food. So I said: ‘Leena, I am going to treat and fix your foot pain again and this month I want you take a good quality multivitamin supplement.’

‘But I have a good diet’ was the reply.

‘I know, I’m not questioning that. Even a good diet can lack, because of the quality of our fruit and vegetables these days. I just want to see if this works.’ So she conceded.

I treated and resolved the pain again. Leena did not modify her footwear or her exercise routine. She simply kept everything the same.

Four weeks went by, six weeks went by. She came again for a checkup. No reoccurrence. I told her just to stick with the supplements for now. Another six weeks went by and she returned just for a followup. No reoccurance. Fine.

What is going on here?

Since seeing Leena many years ago, I have seen the same scenario play out many times. Frankly I am amazed at how obvious the effect of simply introducing a few more vitamins and minerals to an already healthy system can make. What is going on is the fact that it is not only our brain and liver and life-sustaining organs that need a rich supply of nutrients to function. Our skeletal muscles and bones need a constant supply of nutrients in order to function and heal. The problem with most of our diets is that we get ‘just enough’ nutrition to function but the little extra that is needed to do some additional repair work (say, for Leena’s EDL foot pain) is simply not there. Top up the system and the body has the tools it needs to do the repair work.

To read in more detail about how important vitamins are read the article ‘How do vitamins heal my pain?‘