I turned 50 last September. It was like someone flipped a switch! I have aches and pains in places I didn't know I had! Foot, hip, back-- you name it. I work at a desk and if I sit for any length of time I hobble for awhile when I get up and start moving around. I exercise regularly (Nodric-Trak X-country ski machine) and I do some stretching exercises for my achilles. Before the band I would just load up on ibuprofen or Celebrex or Aleve or some other NSAID but I am very careful about taking anything now.

Anyone else deal with these issues? How? It's getting depressing because I seem to come up with something new about every month! I'm hoping weight loss will help....

Yep. It drives me absolutely crazy.

I have something wrong with my heel, it *was* diagnosed as chronic bursitis, and was really the reason why I got banded. It was very inflamed and swollen and painful and I couldnt exercise. A cortisone shot and weight loss helped it. But its never gone away completely, only about six months of acupuncture has moved the discomfort from the outside back of my heel to the inside of my foot. So I suspect its more to do with the plantar fascia (we had ruled out any Achilles involvement). Everymorning when I get up, I hobble for about twenty minutes, its very tight and pulls. I run regularly and if I stop running, that doesnt fix it anyway, so I just do it because I love it and I'd rather be thin and in pain than fat and in pain. It goes away during the day.

But the entire foot overpronates so I often have a sore knee and my back on that side is really bad, but that may have some gynaecological involvement (currently looking into it). I have had sciatic pain for three years now, and its usually just "there", not bad, manageable and I dont take pain relief but how I would love to go out and run without any pain at all.

Some days it is hard to sleep on that side and I'm all achey and sore when I get up.

Basically, my left side and right side feel entirely different. My right side is stuffed, and the leg feels really heavy whereas my left feels so normal.

Recently I had a month where I had NO back pain and it was heaven, I'd really forgotten what it feels like to feel that good.

So I can sympathise. I'm only 40, I actually get a bit worried thinking what this might be like in 10 years time. Every medical expert tells me to keep running because lack of activity helps nothing, but I do wonder whether I'm bringing on more problems in the future.

I had plantar fasciatis (sp?) a few years ago (it's amazing how many people have had it). Got some Berkenstocks for around the house and bought a few pair of $45 insoles for my shoes and in a few weeks I was healed! I couldn't believe it--wonderful. Now it's my achilles and the exercises are only somewhat helpful.

Oh, yes, I had five pairs of birks at last count!

You know what really helps me heaps - Earth Shoes. They have a negative heel, so your foot is slightly uphill in the shoe, I have running shoes. They're not good running shoes, way too heavy but whenever I do my race or a long run, I wear these afterwards. They stretch out the heel and really prevent the post run soreness setting in.