I will tell you my story. In no way is this medical advice.
3 seasons ago I was skiing at Park City in Kings Crown (this is back when Kings Crown was the medium sized park and Pick n' Shovel was the Big Park). I was kind of just getting warmed up to jumping, it was January. The snow warmed up that day and somewhat slowed down. I had hit the jump before and really liked it. I just went to do a 720. The jump was only about 40 feet. I popped really hard and set the rotation, came up about 5 feet short at 630. My heel felt like it had exploded in my boot. I skied off to the side of the landing and just laid down for a few minutes. My foot seriously felt like someone had lit a 1/4 stick of dynamite in my boot. The pain was insane. I skied to my car on one foot. It took me literally about 10 minutes to take my boot off. My heel was pretty swollen but there was no discoloration or anything like that. I could barely walk on it. I used my left foot to drive home.
I had trouble walking on it for the next few days. I bought some Dr. Scholes Gel inserts which helped to alleviate some of the pain. Some people told me it was just bruised. Others said it was plantar fasciitis. Others said it was likely broken. I went to my local insta care unit. They took some X-Rays and said it wasn't broken, likely bruised.I had read online that it is extremely difficult to break your heel without the entire heel shattering, so I didn't think that was the problem. A few weeks later it was still almost unbearable to stand on with my full body weight, but I really wanted to ski again. Plus it was February and it was puking snow. That was almost a record snow year at Alta, and I wasn't going to put it to waste. I decided to ski again, I put my foot in my ski boot, and with all the support of my footbed and the plastic my foot actually felt pretty good. I took it slow and worked up to dropping some stuff and realized that while my foot was in my ski boot, as long as I didn't hit park jumps or land flat off of cliffs my foot actually felt all right!
Then March came. My foot still didn't feel great, but I really wanted to jump. I was at Park City again. All my friends were throwing down on the big jump in Jonesy's. I had been relegated to filmer, which was fun..but I was getting sick of it after almost 2 months. I decided to hit the jump. I was a little timid because of my foot which caused me to come up about 2 feet short..right to the knuckle. Again! my foot felt like it had exploded. I skied down to my car on one foot again. drove home with my wrong foot again. Luckily I already had gel inserts. I was not happy. I asked my aunt, a nurse, what she thought about it. She gave me the best advice I ever have had about a ski related injury.
Aunt: "You have health insurance, right?"
Me: "Yeah"
Aunt: "You want to continue skiing hard and jumping, right?"
Me: "Of course"
Aunt: "Well, why haven't you seen an orthopedic foot surgeon about it yet? InstaCare doctors are great, but they don't know everything about feet, if your foot has hurt for longer than it should, you have a problem"
I scheduled an appointment at The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital with a really cool orthopedic surgeon who skis. He took some X-Rays and confirmed that I had a fracture in my heel. He sent me to the Intermountain Health Care hospital to get a CT scan on my foot. My heel was fractured. it hadn't shattered because it didn't go deep enough to get into the soft tissued inside the bone. He said InstaCare never saw the break because they took my X-rays from the wrong angles. I had been skiing on a broken heel. I ended up skiing on it a few weeks later because it didn't feel bad in my ski boot. I am not sure how the doctor felt about that, but I wouldn't let myself jump so I figured it was okay. My foot continued to hurt for the next few months. Even 5 or 6 months later it would hurt when I jumped up and down on it with or without shoes on.
I am glad I saw a doctor.
