Many, many years ago I had a bad accident. One of the many residual problems was that my right hip, among many other areas of my body, doesn’t always work correctly. Add to this double duty eldercare for 3.5 years, and grad school before that, and I wasn’t getting all the structural therapy that I needed.
Last summer I started having problems when I’d stand up — my right heel would, to put it mildly, feel like a knife was going through it. It would get better throughout the day and then the cycle would start anew in the morning. It got worse. At some point, I was totally incapacitated by what graduated into the feeling of several knives being plunged into my right heel with every step I took. Needless to say, it took a lot of time to get from one room to another.
I finally went to see my chiropractor, who told me my arches, especially my right arch, had fallen. The problem was the old injury in my hip, that resulted in my hip not being articulated properly within the socket, thereby screwing around with my sciatic nerve and ultimately my right heel. With the fallen arches, my feet were uncomfortable in my size 6.5 shoes. I went to a local shoe store for a fitting and a pair fo shoes, and to my horrors, I found out that I needed to wear a 7.5. I had gone up an entire size. I’m not tall, so with a leap of an entire size, it felt like I was gearing up for the Bozo Feet competition!
I’ve been doing three major things to help me. Surgery for me is not an option due to serious medical issues that don’t handle almost all pharmaceuticals very well, to put things mildly. As a result, I rely on alternative therapies that are non-drug. One of those was to return to regular chiropractic treatments, as well as working with a telepathic healer and friend of mine. About 4 months ago I added cranial sacral therapy to the mix, and together all three have done wonders.
In fact, I had no idea how improved this was until I started noticing that my shoes felt too loose. Now I’m one of those Zappos shoppers who, when I find a shoe that fits me well, I buy a second or third pair in the colors I like. I tried on one of the unworn pairs and, well, what do you know, the unworn shoe was too large! With all the work I had been getting to help the structure of my legs, it seemed to have corrected some other issues, and I’m now down to a size 7.
I’m not about to run out and buy those cute pairs of ballet flats though — after going through the pain of a fallen arch and screwed up leg, when I do a lot of walking I only wear shoes with not only cushioning and shock absorption, but they have to have excellent arch support. Lately this has taken me to the land of Pearl Izumi running shoes. They’ve been leaving all the other shoes I’ve tried in the dust!
Just call me Twinkle Toes!
