Heel and Toe Express, Derailed

I’ve been rather fortunate over the years to have decent health in my feet. Lately however, that’s not the case. About a month ago, while I was on vacation, I started to have some pain in my left foot, specifically on top. And it started to swell, and wouldn’t go away with the usual home remedies. As it so happened I had a quarterly checkup with my GP in a week, so I went to that, explained the situation and my Dr sent me for an X-ray. The next day he had the results; and he said I had minor arthritis in the foot and needed to see a podiatrist. All well and good, I had gone to a local podiatrist before and what was wrong was rectified and so on, as things happen. However, this fellow was no longer in practice and as a matter of fact had sold his business to someone else. He (naturally) didn’t have a stellar reputation, so I decided to go a little further afield and go to someone else. I chose a practice that was in another county, but had a fairly good reputation, as well as my wife had gone there about another issue several years ago and had a good experience. Appointment made without too much issue, and I was able to schedule it on a day when I had off from work.

Went to the appointment and after some conversation, his recommendation (after taking another x-ray under load, something the hospital didn’t do) was fitting me with a walking boot for a month while the foot healed. As it turned out, the second x-ray identified a hairline crack in one of the bones coming off my toes. Consequently, his best idea was using the walking boot and that should help with the healing process. Except, it just made things worse.

I walk a LOT when I’m at work. To the tune of sometimes up to 7 miles, and when I attempted to use the walking boot, it just made things nearly impossible. My gait was completely off, the boot weighed a lot and that just made me even more tired than usual, and by the end of the second day, I was having trouble walking at all when I removed the boot. It hurt so much that I had to call off from work the following day as I was limping so bad it was going to be impossible to walk let alone carry anything.

I called the podiatrist’s office and got an appointment. Explained the situation and it was agreed the walking boot wasn’t the solution. Fortunately, I had recently purchased a new pair of work shoes, but given I detest wearing new shoes (because of the stiffness factor) they had been sitting gathering dust for several months. I dragged them out, brought them to the appointment and let the Dr take a look at them to see if they would be a suitable substitute. As it turned out, they met with his approval, though he took a moment to beef up the sole in order to give my foot a little more support while the bone healed.

It’s worked out very well in the past two weeks. The pain has almost completely gone, and the shoes are slowly breaking in, which helps on multiple levels. I have to return in mid-November for another X-ray to see how things are progressing, but the lack of pain tells me that it should be a positive visit. Not sure what they’re going to about the arthritis, but that’s a problem for another day.