My Left Foot

NOTE: This entry has a high ick factor. You may wish to avoid it until well after eating.

My left foot hates me. So does my right foot. I am rapidly learning just how much this is so and beginning to hate them right back.

For about two years my feet would ache a lot, especially after they were rested for a while. Because of this I tried not to walk too much because it was painful. shnetti and ang_grrr have both seen me practically begging to go home instead of walking to whatever site of interest everyone wanted to see because of this.

I did some web searching and self diagnosed plantar fasciitis. I later saw a physiotherapist for shoulder problems and mentioned the foot problems. Before I knew it the diagnosis was confirmed, I got foot casts and some physio on my feet and shelled out for orthotics which are expensive plastic foot supports moulded to make my feet stop pronating. They work. I no longer get a stab of pain when I get out of bed every day and I don't have to hobble downstairs supporting most of my weigh on a combination of my arms, shelves and bannisters.

Theoretically I should now be able to wander around to my heart's content, pain free. It doesn't quite work like that. Not unless you take the interpretation of "pain free" that means you don't pay for the pain. But it's not the aching, it's the blisters.

I have annoying skin that blisters very easily. Sharpen three pencils and I have a blister on my finger and thumb. Walk a mile and my feet start growing randomly placed blisters. And it's not that my shoes don't fit, they're fine for anything less than a mile. But I have to walk because it's how I get to work. And it's good exercise.

Different footwear gives me different blisters. I've found the best way of handling them is to burst them, wait for them to dry out and remove the top layer of dead skin. Unfortunately, this kind of depends on giving them time to heal a bit before walking another mile and I'm doing somewhere around 3 or 4 miles a day at the moment.

The blister run down:

One each on the edge of the big toe that meets the shoe. Not really problematic, the skin there is thick and the blisters are deeps and barely noticeable.

One each on the back of each heel just above where the foot meets the orthotics. As with the toes, these aren't really an issue.

One on the inside edge of my right foot, just below the big toe. Slightly painful.

One on the bottom of my foot just down from the space between the big toe and the one next to it. Visibly noticable but not hurting at all.

One on the tip of my right little toe - very painful, and another on the toe next to it that appears to be there to keep it company rather than to cause me pain.

And then there's the really nasty one on my left foot. Between the big toe and the one next to it and extending down onto the ball of the foot. Very painful. When it develops with every step I can feel it getting bigger. When I burst it it gives relief, although it stings and under normal circumstances all would be well. But it keeps coming back! The raw skin under the blister got a blister, and when I released the liquid contents the space underneath it grew yet another blister. It's horrible. I've got blistered blisters! The same thing is happening with the one on the right little toe. I've tried plasters, I've tried different footwear, I've tried salve - no joy.

So this morning I took to my bike to minimise the walking. My legs feel like jelly.

That is the story of the blisters. There is more - there's thick and cracked skin on the heels, and odd boney lumps on the back of my feet. But those I can live with. The blisters are the current bane of my existence and I'm tired of limping.

Stupid feet.

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It Works!

I have the internet at home again!