🏃 A patient story · personal experience
🏃 Back to Running
How custom-molded orthotics and steady stretching coaching got me running again after years of knee pain.
✍️ Nathanael Elijah Smith, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, DipACLM
🦵 The chapter I thought was closed
After college, knee pain made me give up running. For years I thought that chapter of my life was closed.
Dr. Walter F. D’Costa’s individualized care reopened it. He fitted me with custom-molded orthotics, and his health coaching kept bringing me back to one simple habit: stretch a little more, and keep stretching. That steady coaching is lifestyle medicine at work: small daily habits that add up to healing.
Together, the orthotics and the stretching got me back up and running. I look forward to seeing what kind of runner I will become with an excellent podiatrist like Dr. D’Costa beside me.
🧰 What helped me
🦶 Custom-molded orthotics
Fitted for my feet by my podiatrist, to support the way I stand, walk, and run.
🧘 Stretching, again and again
Repeated health coaching to keep increasing my stretching, a little more each time.
🌱 Lifestyle medicine habits
Small daily habits, practiced consistently. Physical activity is one of the six pillars of lifestyle medicine.
🙏 With gratitude to Dr. Walter F. D’Costa, DPM
Dr. D’Costa is a podiatric physician and foot-and-ankle surgeon at Northern California Foot & Ankle Center in Santa Rosa, California. Thank you, Dr. D’Costa, for individualized care that put me back on the trail.
📖 Co-author role on a future book: pending confirmation. This page is my personal story. It is not a statement from Dr. D’Costa or his practice.
💡 If your feet or knees hurt
My path will not be everyone’s path. Pain is worth listening to, and the right plan depends on you.
- 🩺 Talk with your own clinician before you start or return to running.
- 🦶 Ask whether a podiatrist should check your feet, and whether orthotics fit your situation.
- 🐢 Start slowly, and stop and check in if pain gets worse.
- 🧘 Stretching and strength routines work best when they are tailored to you.
This is my personal experience. Individual results vary. Talk with your own clinician before starting or changing a running program. Coverage for orthotics varies by insurance plan.
— Nathanael Elijah Smith, MSN, APRN, FNP-C, DipACLM
Founder of Kitchen Monk™ and Flourishing Nursing™
