Afraid I might be displaying slight symptoms of Dancer’s Heel…Wrapped up my right ankle for good measure! G’night all! #Valencia #Dancer #Problems Hellooo Tumblrverse! Welcome to my first ever blog post! Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Babita, but I'm more commonly called by my middle name, Sabrina. A fun fact about me is I'm a somewhat accomplished dancer who's had up to 20 years of dance experience in the Bollywood/Filmi genre. My hope is that this blog will be a place that I can share select personal experiences with you readers, and hopefully discover more about myself and help others with any insight I may gain. Kind of like a public diary, I guess. LOL. Without further ado, I'll jump right into a current topic in my life =P... To explain my above instagram post before my little introduction, here's the deal: Every few weeks I have a massage therapy appointment (typically for my back and terribly over-abused neck & shoulders). At my latest appointment, which was late yesterday afternoon, I noticed my ankles (mainly the right side) were hurting and sort of, pinching. And moving my ankles made them crack - A LOT. So, I asked my therapist to have a look at my feet after my regular treatment. She did, and it HURT! She did a little bit of foot reflexology for me, after pressing and rubbing different areas on the foot to determine what, where, and how badly the pain actually was...Sadly, I apparently caused damage SOMEHOW to the heels at the back of my feet. My theory is I'm stepping down too hard when I walk, causing the bones to compress and push pressure from the foot's shock absoption upwards into the sensitive joint areas connecting ankle to foot, at the very back of the foot. I wear orthopedic insoles daily as well, so I know there's a chance the issue is connected to my flat feet, too. We walk heel to toe, so that makes the most sense. Well that, and I haven't practised or performed any dance routines yet for this year, so I KNOW dancing didn't cause this. The affected areas primarily consists of ligaments and tendons, namely the Achilles tendon; in other words, collagenous connective tissue which is easy to damage with enough improper use/abuse to those fibers. As a dancer, my feet are PRECIOUS; they MUST be maintained and taken care of - although I had to learn that fact the hard way. See, I had experienced this exact same pain sensation the previous year around this exact same time. Only I didn't take it as seriously as I should have, considering I had two performances coming up for my uncle's wedding to prepare and perform for. The result of last year's ignorance on my performances were negative, of course: not by the audience and the happy couple - they appeared to enjoy it - but I knew it wasn't done to the best of MY capabilities. I was so unhappy with that outcome, I don't think I performed for the rest of the year! Well, aside from teaching a family friend a routine to perform in Florida. Even during those sessions it was difficult to deal with the pain, and I STILL didn't look into it. Now it appears the issue is repeating itself, for the sake of getting my attention to do something about it. And as you can see, I did with a little help from my therapist (there's a black pain relief patch underneath the wrapping). The whole wrapping idea I discovered on my own, after researching possible injuries/inflammations related to dancers. So, just in case, I'm taking preventative measures...Better safe, than sorry and incapable of dancing! That might literally kill my spirit. I just hope it helps and allows me to perform my routine AMAZINGLY for my little cousin's Sweet 16 on April 6th - which I still have to choreograph! As a side note, I find this situation a little funny though. I’m no ballerina, (I wish!) but somehow I’m experiencing eerily similar symptoms to a common ballet dancer’s physical injury - that's why it's commonly referred to as Dancer's Heel. I got it from walking though: Guess it's 'Walker's Heel' for me! Until next time! =) Oh, and I pledge to keep future posts concise. Sayonara =P
