Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Dealing With Cyclist and Runners Hot Foot or Feet

Some of you have heard me speak on this and far more of you have not and this is for you....

Neuropathy - A feeling that the body part effected, (usually the feet and lower legs) are at minimal, tingling and more developed; feels like their are on fire from the inside out. 

Scientifically, its the cracking and erosion of the fatty sheath or covering of the nerve a(Think of the coating on a copper wire to keep the electricity inside not leaking out and into the waters and metals in our bodies on skin to covering contact>

Damage, inflammation, degradation, of the nerves our covering will allow the electrical current inside to leak out into the surrounding tissues and systems triggering all kinds of irritating and painful experiences to manifest either in a pin point location or pervasively all over an area and spreading over time.

At the time I originally created this post I was 57. I am 63 as of this revision of this post.

Prior this Running as a Lifestyle season of my life, I Bicycle Road Raced and participated in Ultra Distance events spanning 23 yrs and resulting in covering about 750,000 miles in the saddle. 

During the bicycle racing season of my life I noticed especially in hot weather, that my feet felt like they were on fire while riding in cycling shoes. 

I thought it was due to the constrictive nature of the laces or bindings of cycling shoes and tried both dumping my drinking water on my feet as I rode and buying more and more expensive shoes in an attempt to find a pair that didn't squeeze the front portion of my foot (or metatarsals like the bones in the palm of your hand that the fingers attach to)

About 14 yrs ago as of this update to this post, that burning pain got so bad even on short rides, that I hung up the bike out of frustration and chronic discomfort. 

After a few weeks I knew I needed another way to "Land-Surf". I was going stir crazy only working out in the gym with no outdoor aerobic activity spanning hours at a time.

The frustration of not feeling my systems stressed in the patterns it had mostly mastered drove me to eat more cooked foods than raw which lead to growing nutrient deficits and adaptability to stress loads or pattens shrinking. 

Like the scene in the movie "Forest Gump" I woke up one day and decided I'd return to running; even though back in the late 1970's my right knee self destructed while taking a "running break from cycling during the fall and winter. 

The damage to the right knee was bad enough that joint specialist told me I needed a complete right knee replacement!

My sojourn back into running again led to burning foot and knee pain and again led to buying all kinds of shoes and orthotics in an attempt to find comfort & sustainability.

One day, several miles into a run I experienced this massive, shooting pain half way between my right big toe and my ankle between the big toe metatarsal and the next toe over's metatarsal as if either a bone had snapped into and was trying to pierce the skin or someone had stabbed that area with a white-hot piece of metal!

The intensity of the pain forced an instant STOP! So I pulled my shoe and sock off and saw no visible signs of injury! But the areas I felt the pain from within were extremely sensitive to touch...

Since this was long before Uber or Lyft  and mobile phones were the size military field walked talkies, I hobbled it back home. 

 I rode one of my bikes for a few days to give this a chance to work its way out.... Hopefully!

Even after a week, any attempt to run reactivated the same shooting and burning pain!

Here I was the guy who had been running 17-20 miles at a clip with my heart rate barely ticking above 120 beats per minute suddenly sidelined by some invisible injury I'd never felt with before.....?????

A week turned into a month... A month turned into 3 months... Even riding the bike became painful... I took to riding the bus back and forth to work. 

I scoured the internet looking for clues and solutions. 

I was able to rule out a broken bone as the pain was not in a bone but in between the metatarsals and on top of the gap in between them. 

As I continued my search determined that there had to be others out there that had experienced this and overcome it, I started coming up on post about Neuropathy or nerve sheath degeneration.

Most sites tried to steer me towards medical intervention suggesting: severing nerves or using drugs to internally destroy the nerves impulse streams! I couldn't believe the barbaric proposals I was coming upon that were considered "Cutting Edge Solutions!"


I came upon suggestions that the pain could a sign of B12 deficiency and a recommendation for a book called 



Could It Be B12?: An Epidemic of Misdiagnoses 

by Sally M. Pacholok


Click the Amazon image below to get a copy


This book both connected the dots and demystified the reality that many nerve related syndrome and symptoms are misdiagnosed in the western medicine approach because doing so is so profitable for treatment residual revenues!

One of the core markers of B12 deficiency is nerve sheath degradation resulting in the experience of Neuropathy in the lower legs gradually moving up.

This led me to research what exactly is vitamin B12, what it does in the human body and how it works, where it comes from, how best to get more of it into my body and what the various kinds of B12 were and why was there more than one kind?

Most online postings I could find about treating B12 deficiency seemed to get the most pronounced and sustainable results when B12 was injected by syringe into a large muscle group like the deltoids of the shoulder or the gluteus. 

My thinking at that time was that if I had a choice I'd prefer to swallow capsules or having to go pay a doctor to inject the liquid form into my body.

I've never liked dealing with the medical establishment so I opted to find out more about the encapsulated forms, their differences and strip away any marketing hype.




That led me to a site that explained Neuropathy's Causes and the most Effective Home Treatment 



What grabbed my attention was a few points the site listed: Their offering is a vegan B12 formula that was focused on both the right kind of B12 combined with other vitamins and herbs while delivering the right high quality dose to the right part  of the intestinal tract needed to support the regeneration the undernourished nerves throughout the body.

II decided that calling and actually talking to the person or persons behind this site was a must as what was happening in my feet was nothing to miss the make again about and I've always been able to read a person even with something as taken for granted as the sound of their voice and their breathes.

I spoke to Wes Jones MD, the creator of this formula and owner of the company.

After momentary pleasantries, I proceeded to share what my symptoms were and he shared that what I described as the symptoms were the typical pattern his formula was designed to address. 

He offered A TWO WEEK SUPPLY "FOR FREE!" I paid shipping and agreed to authorize an automatic monthly shipment of enough to carry me 30 days at a time if I found the formula worked as implied and I wanted to continue. Or if I didn't want to continue leading up to and beyond the 2 week free trial I could call and cancel the auto ship and owe nothing. 

If I went through the free samples and took delivery of the auto-shipped they offered a full money back guarantee on all shipped product for up to one year from date of receipt!

This was a No Brainer as there was no risk to me and the confidence and real world knowledge and client experience on the topic told me to Go For It!

The bottle arrived about 4 days later. I started with 3 caps in the morning and 3 in the evening with food.

By day 3, the pain in the foot had subsided enough to put in a relatively low to almost no pain 6 mile run!

By day 14, I was back to running 15 miles per day pain free!

By 3 weeks out, I completed a 32 mile run from my home in Corona,  CA to the closest REI Coop over in Rancho Cucamonga and foot back pain free!

This pain taught me a ton of useful information that would change the rest of my life especially in regard to fueling as an endurance athlete.

Run For The Adventure Of It