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Duh! What a whimp.

solosater

I used to be barefoot all the time; in fact I used to routinely come home and realize I’d left my shoes somewhere else. I can’t go barefoot anymore but it’s not the soles that give me trouble, or at least not the skin; my feet hurt for days after a few hours on my bare feet. I will sometimes take my shoes off at a friend’s house and get comfy then forget to put them on and I walk around the house or help in the kitchen or whatever. When it’s time to put the shoes back on there is screaming pain right in the arch of my foot (plantar fasciitis) and the rest of the foot and ankle ache for a couple of days.

I use a small hard ball (a baseball is ok, smaller is better for me – a ping-pong or high bounce ball is ideal) to massage the bottoms of my feet. Put the ball on the floor and using your foot (best to sit as it could very easily slip) roll the ball back and forth and side to side focusing on the sore spots. I do it barefoot to have more control but if your floor is carpeted you would probably be ok wearing socks.

This is great on the wall too for the shoulders and shoulder blades, the hips and lower back too; really anywhere you can get it. I use a racket ball for the wall; hard balls tend to slip and you end up getting a real good leg exercise which is fine but I like to focus more on the back massage;-) The same idea with the ball on the wall put the ball behind you where you need the work and lean up against the wall you’ll need a couple inches up and down so start lower and use the knees to raise your torso up and down and side to side.

As I said, a bit of work but it really feels good!

solosater

In a pinch if I'm out and about and having foot pain I try to find a step near a wall or hand rail and facing the step put the balls of my feet on the step with my heals hanging over the edge and let my heals drop past "neutral" to stretch the arch. You can do one foot at a time but I find it easier to do both.

solosater

You'll feel that all the way up the back of the leg as well. It's great after a day in heals!

marius

solosater - I've read about doing that massage stuff with balls. How did you figure this out, decide, to do this? I haven't tried the balls, however reading how you use them and what they do for you, I think I get the same effects from yoga. I'm all for anything that works!

And, funny to read about heels! I have one pair and haven't worn them in years ... not because I don't like them, I do, but my feet do not & never have. I mean, they REALLY hurt!

And the mention of heels reminds me of a date I had once! (no pun intended) There was one guy who had a "thing" about women in heels. He was certain he would get me to wear heels. I knew right away that this was on a "tip of the ice berg" issue so finally I said, " I'll wear them if you do too - then we'll BOTH be in extreme discomfort!" Pretty sure I didn't hear from him after that - do you think he lost my number? : )

Robindcr8l

Marious, you can only HOPE he lost your number. Heels are the perfect fetish for a heel! Sounds like you'd have been in extreme discomfort with him even if you were in flats!

Solo, I too have beenplagued with plantar fasciitis. One thing my podiatrist told me was to NEVER go barefoot again...even when getting up to the bathroom in the middle of the night, she told me to wear my Birks for support. I also iced my feet regularly, and did some stretching exercises fairly religiously. I got over-the counter orthotics, and took anti-inflammatories around the clock. It worked, and my fasciitis went away for years. Then I got lazy. Started the barefootin' again. Never stretched anymore. Not so consistent wearing my orthotics. Now, for the past few weeks, my plague is back. So back to my old regimine I go. Thank goodness for ibuprofen!

Dragon

I'm afraid I have a deep and abiding love for heels. My thing for shoes is well known and in fact 2 of my birthday cards this year had a shoe theme about them. When I used to work retail I wore heels all day long, when I got home my feet would just about sigh in relief. I couldn't wear sneakers then and flats are even worse. I have very wide, flat feet and flats (or even something with a kitten heel) just don't work, my foot just kind of spills out all over the place and stretches the shoe out.
Now that I work in a vet clinic I wear clog style running shoes and they are wonderful, I rarely have foot pain when I come home.

solosater

I have that same problem, large, wide feet that wont fit comfortably in a medium width shoe. Flats are the worst and tennis shoes are hell on my feet.

I’ve had no luck with orthotics; I rarely wear shoes that will accommodate them. I used to wear Birkenstocks all the time but frankly got tired of them stinking so badly! I’ve never had shoes that absorbed stink like my Birkies, I tried everything to keep them clean and dry but nothing worked. For a while I was able to wear the plastic (?) ones but they changed the insole from a tight honeycomb pattern to a wide striped pattern that bothered my soles too much to wear without socks; living in the heat of Phoenix with socks on was brutal.

I have found a couple other brands that work well for me. Sofft, Finn Comfort, Dansko, Born and Eric Michael all work well for me and they are not hideous;-)

I’ve found that wearing a slight wedged heel works the best for me; it supports the arch without an actual arch support. I don’t have trouble with heels up to 4 or 5 inches so long as it’s not a stiletto; I own several pairs of wood soled heels and a couple of stacked heeled pairs that get me by. For casual daily wear I have a pair of black Sketcher’s thongs with a 2 inch heel that work real well though they do seem to build calluses worse than they should.

I ice my feet too; I thought I was the only one. Is that particular to plantar fasciitis? Do you know, I’ve “diagnosed” the problem in several of my clients and friend but none of them have understood my desire to ice my feet; they all go for heat. My feet burn! Not just the skin on my soles but the tissue underneath too and my palms do the same thing sometimes. I’ve always assumed it was something to do with the fibromyalgia more than the plantar fasciitis.

I picked up the ball work from a massage therapist and learned about using it on the wall from physical therapy. Stretching, any way you do it, helps; yoga isn’t something I’ve tried formally but I use some of the poses in with other stretches. I don’t really do any specific exercises, just what works for me.

Robindcr8l

I think ice is still, after all the breakthroughs in modern medicine, the best anti-inflammatory around. People often tend to turn to heat with injuries and I NEVER recommend it! Heat might feel soothing, but it increases the circulation to a given area, and therefore increases inflammation. Fasciitis is an inflammatory process (itis as a suffix means inflammation). Ice will always work better than heat on inflammation. It has a numbing effect for the pain, and decreases the circulation and inflammation to the area. I get chronic pain patients at work who don't respond to narcs or traditional meds, but I ALWAYS recommend they try ice in addition to their usual remedies.

marius

Thanks for the professional info Robin as I have *always* wondered when to use heat and when to use cold. A few times when doctors have told me to use ice, um, I've just looked at them and thought they were crazy. I mean, cold is C-O-L-D!!! But, your explanatioin makes sense.

However, are you guys talking about using REAL ice? When I use cold, I go for those soft gel packets you keep in the freezer, wrap them in a towel and apply.

And, Ms. Nurse, can you please explain something else? Long ago when I hit my head real hard on a table, someone said, "Quick, press the place where you hit your head, as hard as you can, for as long as you can ... that way it won't bruise and you won't have as much pain later on."

As far as I can tell, this works great, and not just on the head. But, WHY does it work? Have the idea it stops blood from running around under the injury but other than that - clueless.

marius

Ah Dragon - I love seeing other women dressed nicely and in heels! Lucky you that you can wear heels, and also enjoy your deep and abiding love of them! Heels are very stylish and they do tend to complete some outfits in a way that flats never will. I shall go in a corner now and feel sorry for myself. : )

Dragon

I certainlynever meant to make you feel sorry for yourself marius. My love of shoes has become kind of a running joke in my family (and with friends too). One of my co-workers told me that she had no more than 3 pairs of shoes and none of them was particularly dressy. One pair was the ratty old Crocs she wore to work everyday. I can't wrap my head around that. I have more pairs than that in my gym locker. She asked me how many I had so I counted that lunch hour. I think she was shocked when I said "I don't have that many pairs, just 35 counting work and gym shoes."
That was last year sometime so I'm sure I've gotten new one since, but I've also ditched some old worn out ones so it's probably pretty similar.

solosater

Here's my question for you Robin, if the pain doesn't respond to ice/cold or gets worse wouldn't it be logical to assume that it is not inflammation? I ask because being diagnosed with fibromyalgia I can't seem to get anyone to look at any thing else and I KNOW I'm having nerve pain AND inflammation. As far as I know fibromyalgia is an inflammatory disorder, though the newest drug, Lyrica (pregabalin), is third or fourth generation of Neurontin (gabapentin), which is used to treat nerve problems, so perhaps I'm more confused than I think...

marius, I use an ice bath for my feet but generally use the gel packs for other applications.

Robindcr8l

Just realized I was shurking my nursing responsibilities here. I am not good at multi-tasking, apparently. Anyway, Marius, any form of ice that you prefer will do. I actually have a little ice bag that I fill about 50/50 with water and isopropyl alcohol and stick in the freezer. It makes a sort of slush, and lasts forever, then molds to whatever area you use it on. Just never apply ice directly to your skin, as you could get frostbite. Wrap it in a pillowcase or towel.

Solo, it seems to me that fibromyalgia is a mystery to the medical community. I have not heard an adequate explanation ever for what causes this pain syndrome. I would agree that it seems like it may have a neurological basis, being that it sometimes responds to the neuroleptic drugs. But not everyone diagnosed with it responds to those drugs, so that is where the mystery comes in. I would be very frustrated if I were given this diagnosis, as it sometimes comes with a stigma attached to it, also, as I'm sure you've experienced. This means you have to search for a doctor who will listen and BELIEVE your symptoms, then work hard with you to find a treatment that is effective. You should only be given this diagnosis by a rheumatologist, and only after meeting the criteria applied to it and having other diagnoses eliminated as a cause for your symptoms. I have to tell you, this won't be a popular thing for me to say, but for female patients I really believe female doctors are best in most circumstances. I have been a nurse for 18 years, and most of the male MDs I have been around will often attribute female symptoms to emotional causes and not look very hard for physical causes. Of course there are exceptions to that rule, and I'm sure there are female docs out there who do the same thing. I have a male family practice doc, but only see him for things like sinus trouble. Mostly I take my son to him. But my Gyn is a female because I just prefer someone who has some personal insight into the female body.

So all this babbling means is that 1. I don't know enough about fibromyalgia to educate you any more than you likely already are. and 2. My best recommendation is to keep looking for the right doctor until you're satisfied that you are being taken seriously.

solosater

Robin, I agree with all that! Oh except the shirking bit;-)

Fibromyalgia is a crapshoot!

I have a great doctor (female) who absolutely believes that I have chronic pain and has referred me to a neurologist and would like to send me to a rheumatologist as well but I'm resistant as I'm sure they don't have anything new to tell me.

I was diagnosed by a rheumatologist who specializes in fibromyalgia several years ago but then turned right around and said it was all my fault; I wasn't exercising enough, I didn't get enough sleep, I didn't eat properly, you name it. Mind you, I was having real trouble getting out of bed every day and the idea of trying to cook healthy food and exercise was more than I could do at that time. He basically said he was wasting his time treating me (I'd like to know what he thought was worthy of the title "Treatment" the browbeating perhaps or maybe the ibuprofen prescription?). I’ll say that he was not wrong so much as cold and rude; the trouble was that I couldn’t do what he knew I needed to in order to feel at all better and he wasn’t willing to help my get to where I could

The next rheumatologist wanted me to take an anti-malarial medication that had a 70% chance of curing the fibromyalgia (I’m guessing this is untrue or we’d have heard of it) and a 50% chance of causing macular degeneration. I don’t think so! The next said I had “Tender Lady Syndrome” at which time my mother literally had to hold me back. The one after that basically said that there wasn’t much they could do with the diagnosis as there weren’t any drugs for it at that time and they really didn’t know much about it. Well, thanks for the honesty.

I actually did the drug trials for Lyrica and had some success but became immune to it very quickly, before they started the placebo stage I was back to my normal. My mother did the trials too; she lasted about two weeks longer but still before the placebo stage she was completely immune. She has since been diagnosed with polymyalgia rheumatica but the treatment overlaps quite a bit. On a side note I’m terribly allergic to Neurontin, which we didn’t know at the time, but I had no trouble with the Lyrica.

My family history is littered with spinal and neurological pain disorders so I’ve been looking into that as a possible alternative to the fibromyalgia diagnosis. While I’ve been blessed with very good doctors who know their stuff and have real empathy it’s as if there is some sort of mental block that infects all doctors once you are diagnosed with fibromyalgia; every one of them will agree that it is a diagnosis of ELIMINATION (they believe there IS a problem but I don’t fit into any other category they have tested me for) but when I say lets look at other options or perhaps I do have “fibromyalgia” but something else too they don’t seem to get it. Fibromyalgia covers everything from head to foot that could possibly cause me pain so when I go in and say, “I’m in pain”, they say, “You have fibromyalgia.” They all stop looking. As I said I’ve been blessed with great doctors so they are willing to do further testing and scans and whatnot but it’s like pulling teeth.

I’ve started to feel like a hypochondriac and I know I’m not! I just don’t want to stop looking; I think if we look we’ll find something that fits my trouble better and too I don’t want to miss something and it get too far to treat effectively. Every person I know who has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia has different symptoms, different pain and different sensitivities. In every other disorder that I know of there is at least a little overlap in symptoms from one case to another. A girlfriend of mine had been diagnosed with fibromyalgia for ten years and recently was re-diagnosed with MS. She never had fibromyalgia, she was never properly diagnosed and so not properly treated and her MS is way worse than it would have been if they had caught it earlier and started treatment earlier. I don’t want that to happen to me. I don’t want to end up having multiple spinal surgeries like my mom because they didn’t catch the problem before it was too late.

I’ll say it again; fibromyalgia is a crapshoot!

NADIA

Good Morning Guys.1
Maybe you guys can give me some advise.I have had some pains in my legs since I was 6Years old.Have been to hundreds of doctor's and not one of them can give me answers as to what it is or how to slove it.My dad was diognosed with rheumatoid Arthritis when he was in is thirties and my mom has osteoporosis.I have not been diagnosed with either of those,but have to undergo tests on a regular basis.Some days the pain is so severe after a long day on my feet, (or when it's extremely cold),that I can't move.I have tried heat,but that increases the pain before it soothes it.Haven't tried the cold one yet.Any ideas?

marius

Golly, solosater - what a story about fybromyalgia. So sorry to hear it. And, I've had my own share of stuff so am familiar with what I consider "odd" or "uninformed" reactions from doctors. But, you don't sound like you've given up. The more things you have tried that didn't work, the closer you may be to finding an answer that DOES work.

I got that idea from reading about an inventor. Famous guy - just can't recall his name right now. Anyway, when someone asked him how he felt to have failed on so many of his ideas, the man said, "I have never failed. I have merely learned which things don't work." I thought that was a bright and up-beat way to look at it. Of course, I don't think he was in physical pain when he was inventing and "finding out what didn't work."

Here's the only fibro story I know:
I used to work with a gal who had fybromyalgia and it took her $10,000.00 of her own money (after insurance) but she finally got a handle on it. In her case, she had severe allergies to all kinds of things but had not been aware of this until she was tested. She had to go off of wheat, tomatoes, and many, many other kinds of foods. But, once she had done that for about three months she said her whole world turned around. She said once she got used to her new weird diet that it wasn't a problem, especially as the relief she felt was worth the dietary restrictions.

So, I'll just send good thoughts and healing thoughts your way. It's all I know to do.

marius

And Nadia, I don't know a thing about what you described. Sounds very trying and scary too! Sorry to hear it, but glad that you shared with us.

When I was not having success getting treatment for my own ailments, I finally (and reluctantly) changed to an alternative medicine doctor. That man had me trying accupuncture, yoga, Reiki, Shiatsu, reflexology, meditation, cranial sacral and on and on.

Eventually I found healing modalities that helped my situaion and was even able to get off many of the medications I'd been taking. I was also prescribed vitamin supplements, teas, etc.

This route is not for everyone, but it might not hurt to look into it ... only problem, insurance does not cover a lot of these kinds of "treatments." I think they are just now covering accupuncture in some cases. If you go to a Naturepathic MD - some of the treatments are covered, I think. (And not sure I spelled Naturepathic right - you'll have to look it up if interested.)

Anyway, my best to you and I also send you wishes for healing and comfort.

NADIA

Thanx alot Marius.I never thought about that route.Maybe I'll see if we have one of those Naturologist MD's here,and try it.
At this time I will try anything,But when I read about the things that everyone wright's about here,then I don't have any REAL problems.

marius

Wow Nadia. I read your profile and it looks like you live in a very exotic and beautiful place! Anyway, I looked it up, and the doctor I saw is called a "Naturoopathic" MD. They are like any doctor, except they have a focus (extra training) on "holistic" or "alternative" medicine.

By the way, Polenta started a thread (it's in the community section on page 2) and is called, "For those who like to learn about other cultures."
Personally I wish you'd go there and tell us about where you live, anything and everything. I'll probably never get to visit across the ocean so this is a fun way to learn about places where people live.