Hi. This is the first time I'm on one of these forums. After 4 years of suffering, I finally found a doctor who thinks he knows what's wrong with me.

It started when I wanted to lose weight and decided to do those Insanity videos in my basement. The problem was that I wasn't wearing any shoes, which is stupid, I know, but I didn't know any better. Insanity workouts involve high impact exercise, which means a lot of jumping up and down. One move I did was going into a plan or push up position, then clapping my hands together, then fall back on my hands, if that makes sense! ha. really good for me. One day I noticed swelling in my ankle and tried resting it and stopped exercising.

Here's the worst part, I didn't go to the doctor. I have no idea why. I was lazy, depressed, and to overwhelmed to take care of myself (this is true in many areas of my health). Eventually I see a couple of physical therapists and a foot and knee surgeon. All diagnose me with tendonitis but I can tell they're really confused and not confident with that. They were shocked by my symptoms.

So that brings me to what I've been experiencing. My left foot has changed permanently. It is always a little puffy in the area below the toes and around my ankle. I feel soreness in my foot, ankle, and calf. I get aching pain and my feet kill me after walking for a bit, even with comfortable sneakers on. When my feet are elevated for a long time, they look pretty normal (only if you look closely will you see that the left is a little big), but when I'm sitting for a long time or I walk in flat shoes, they swell big time, especially my left foot. Wearing sneakers or boots do a good job of compressing the foot and swelling is minimal. Worst symptom of all has been the foot dragging and swinging out, which causes me to bump into things. I trip up the stairs and I think I have some sort of foot drop. Last winter I was walking and all of a sudden I realized I was falling. I didn't trip over anything, just fell forward. I'm also pretty vain about this stuff. As a young woman, it's pretty devastating when you have ankles that swell like crazy. I look like an old lady with edema in her legs due to old age. Really attractive. Now I'm noticing the same symptoms in my right foot and in my hands. I've been really clumsy dropping things and such.

I can't tell you the cycle I've gone through, giving up and then thinking, "There has to be a reason for all of this. What's the cause?" A couple of weeks ago I went to the doctor and laid out all my symptoms online (with Zocdoc). I wanted him to have a diagnosis by the time I got there. He told me this is the presumptive one, so here I am.

To sum up, my symptoms are:

-pain in foot, ankle, calf
-extreme swelling
-edema/pitting
-red spots when I walk
-semi foot drop
-possible spread to right ankle and hands (dropping things)

Here are some pics

Sorry for the long post. It's a scary diagnosis and I hope it can get better. If anyone has thoughts let me know. Thanks. I'm eager to hear your stories too and eager to exchange stories about our journeys.

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