A Few Words About Drop Foot
[Note: Earlier this year I learned I had sleep apnea, and wrote about that experience. This is another entry in the "2026 medical surprises" saga.]
On a Wednesday in May, I realized I could no longer lift my left foot up and down — the way I had done so every day of my life previous to that one. I pressed myself mentally to make my foot move, and it pulled upward, a few struggling centimeters, then fell like wind was pushing it back down. My right foot lifted and bounced, almost in a braggart fashion. My left foot (in what is I guess the opposite of the movie — haven’t seen it) struggled to follow my basic mental command to rise. The separation between what I had done and what I could no longer do was manifest, physical, and unpleasant.
Of course I waited to do anything about it, especially with a trip my wife and I had planned for Paris presque ici. At Leah’s urging, I did make an appointment with a doctor at the Austin Regional Clinic (ARC), and in an office of one his coworkers (I don’t recall why we weren’t in his office and have no idea why there was so much Ted Lasso-themed art in this one) this nice man slumped onto a stool and checked my reflexes. Nothing had changed, or nothing positive, anyway.
I talk to and write about health professionals for a living, and while I’ve discovered many new-to-me conditions/diseases like ankylosing spondylitis and metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis through our conversations and my research, I don’t recall ever hearing about foot drop, or drop foot, depending on your preference. From the NHS: “Foot drop (drop foot) is where it's difficult to lift or move your foot and toes. It usually affects 1 foot and can affect the way you walk” and “The most common cause of foot drop is an injury to a nerve that runs down your leg and controls the muscles that lift your foot.”
Or, from a continuing education activity found on our National Library of Medicine’s website: “Foot drop is a neuromuscular condition characterized by weakness or paralysis of the dorsiflexor muscles, causing difficulty lifting the forefoot during gait and resulting in a high-steppage walking pattern. The condition can result from compressive neuropathies, trauma, autoimmune, inherited, and spinal, as well as neurodegenerative, compressive, or psychological disorders.”
Both the simplistic and the more complicated (and disturbing) descriptions meant, in practice, that I now had to lift my entire leg to walk up the stairs (“high-steppage walking pattern”) and was tripping/stumbling more often than usual. I also read a lot about what may cause foot drop, and mentioned a few to the doctor as possible culprits: weight loss caused by GLP-2s, or maybe I got a little too into a King Arthur stretch I did at hot yoga? The doctor wasn’t sure. When I mentioned I was about to go to Paris in a week, and should I still, he said, “I know what I would do” without telling me what that would be. I went.
Paris was great, stairs aside, and even the hilly Montmartre where we stayed didn’t knock me on my ass too many times (I had three moderate spills, two I think climbing up the stairs from the subway). Still, my constant companion in France (aside from Leah) was this blossoming question: what the fuck was wrong with my foot? How did I do it? And would I be able to regain what I had for so long taken for granted — up-down, basic mobility?
My doctor at ARC referred me to a foot and ankle specialist in west Austin, and when I returned from vacation I went into his office to hear the news. Unsurprisingly, lefty had not regained full mobility abroad, and after talking a bit, the doctor stuck a syringe into my leg for quite a while as part of an ultrasound. Details from that session are about as murky as what I was seeing on the screen, but essentially he confirmed things were not working like they should, that I should start physical therapy (the office was conveniently next door), and then he tried a few other things that, in some misguided positivity, I thought might fix the foot right then and there. Beginning physical therapy disabused me of the idea that recovery was going to consist of just a doctor’s visit or two. It was time to get to work.
Physical therapy was vague, shapeless concept to me. Something like a gym? Repetitive motions? It turns out this isn’t entirely wrong, but in my ignorance I didn’t account for the many types of conditions that gathered in those rooms for recovery. While I tried to keep my eye and mind on the (odd-feeling and, I’m sure, looking) exercises like backward monster walks and leg lifts (I don’t recall the official names of these things) I would glance at one person using her toes to place marbles in a jar, or in our little corridor I would be doing some kind of lurching stretch-walk and passing by someone doing something similarly wacky and helpful.
The physical therapy office was staffed with friendly, often young folks who gave me instructions on how to better lift, stretch, and plank. I would emerge from therapy a little sweaty with instructions on how to do nerve glides and stretches at home, which I mostly dutifully did. The process was bemusing, often ending in kind of a nice massage from the therapist who oversaw my care — a kind person who always seemed to be pondering riddles and similarly quizzing other employees (students studying to become physical therapists) why we were doing what we were doing, what we should do next, etc. He guided them to the right answers while I listened with my leg up on a doorframe stretching my hamstrings.
My foot gradually improved, and I started to gain back the mobility I had so suddenly lost. As for the cause of the drop foot, my physical therapist believes that it wasn’t my newer GLP usage or my abuse of yoga or anything, but after coaxing from me that I tend to spend my workday with my feet and legs wrapped under myself like a spider with something to hide, he guessed that was it. And he told me to sit with my feet flat on the ground while working — a much harder ask than anything we did during my appointments. Finding this so weirdly frustrating, I finally settled on a “StrongTek Wooden Under Desk Footrest” to help me keep my feet from under my ass, and it worked better than just the force of will.
And then, after just twelve visits over a month — twice a week — it was all over. My physical therapy team believed I would regain mobility if I kept showing up and doing my home exercises, and they were right. But of course the body makes no promises. Depending on what was going on with that foot, recovery could have involved more therapy, surgery even. And honestly, my foot and leg don’t owe the rest of me anything. There’s a chance I could have just had a drop foot forever — unpleasant for walking, working out, or getting nutty with a hi-hat — but ultimately manageable.
I’m thankful lefty is back to normal, though I find myself thinking about physical therapy sometimes, especially when it’s after work and I’m headed somewhere in the same direction as those west Austin offices. After working at my job during the day, it was like having separate, late afternoon coworkers — paid acquaintances who talked with you about dinner plans and TV shows while you stomp and twist across the floor in ways that become less embarrassing week after week.
