Stress Fracture – Laugh or Cry?

Over the past two months I’ve had some pain in my left foot, toward the front, bottom, outside half.  At first I thought it was just some muscle pain.  You know, after putting on 2,500 miles bicycling and then figure skating once or twice a week, it seemed logical that I could have pulled something.

But it just didn’t get better.  When I visited my doctor he thought I might have a stress fracture.  I had an x-ray, but it was negative.  So, then I had to endure a bone scan.

For a bone scan, I had to be injected with some radioactive substance, then return three hours later for a more detailed picture of the foot bones.  Still negative.  It looked like no stress fracture.  That’s good news.

The next step is physical therapy.  So today I had my first physical therapy appointment.  After Tammy, the therapist, poked and prodded my foot for a while looking for the point of pain, she concluded one of two things.  Either I do have stress fracture, too early to see on xray or bone scan, or an inflamed nerve.

Then she went in pursuit of the definitive stress fracture evalution tool — drum roll — a tuning fork!  So here’s the deal; whack a precisely tuned fork, and when at a good vibration, place on the bottom of the foot.  If the pain intensifies it’s a stress fracture, if not, something else.

This is what makes me laugh or cry.  If a stress fracture can be determined with something as simple as a tuning fork, why did I have to be radiated by xrays and endure an injection of some radioactive isotope and try to hold still for extended periods of high tech photography? 

OK, so a tuning fork is not a glamorous billion dollar diagnostic imaging contraption, but if it gets the job done, you’d think the insurance companies would rather go for the tuning fork!  I’m sure that’s the bill I’d rather pay.  (Oh yeah, I’ll end up paying for all of it anyway since my deductible is about a gazillion dollars.)