So I've been wearing the dorsiflexion night splints for this heel spur/plantar fasciitis problem, and it is having some positive effect. The "first step" pain so often indicative of both conditions has lessened considerably. But when I've been sitting a while, well, here it comes again! Onward I plod.
The negative on the night splints is how they have caused me to regurgitate old memories. As a child, I had to wear similar night splints, as I've mentioned in a prior post. But now, I have dreams of that period, and they ain't pretty, ya dig? Though these present day splints are made of plastic and velcro, and are significantly more comfortable by comparison, getting up to hit the head in the middle of the night is nearly as bad as the first time. Hence the dreams, I suppose.
I recently read an article on folks who suffer from Charcot-Marie-Tooth's Disease. I remember making shoes for a number of such folks back in the day. I am struck by the similarities, not of the conditions themselves, per se, but how post-club feet, CMT Disease, and even MS, of how the conditions are experienced by those who have to contend daily with them. Chronic pain, the every day knowledge that you will only get worse (though without any firm timeline, degree of change, or speed of deterioration knowable by you or by the medical community,) the constant awareness of needing to plan your day so as to avoid any unnecessary efforts, a background buzz of staying at least moderately aware of the surfaces you walk on, the shoes you wear and their balance or lack thereof, and more.
I know for myself, and for many others I have made shoes and orthotics for over the years, it might only be a difference of one degree of wear on my shoes, or having to negotiate ten blocks of city streets with slanted sidewalks, to set off a long bout of both foot and, by extension, lower back pain (compensation at work,) though the effect of the slanted sidewalks can sometimes be offset by walking back in the opposite direction, but on the same side of the street (this just unbalances you in the opposite direction, and while no less problematic for my feet, can at least stave off the painful back a while.)
I have long been aware of how I notice the way in which other people walk - that's partly a hazard of those years of doing gait analysis - especially when I see their badly-worn shoes, or the women who wear those six-inch spikes and walk with a distinct wobble. I know from long experience working with such people when they get older, and the toll of that need for attention finally grabs their attention in unpleasant ways, that it could all be avoided. But when you do not suffer from chronic pain, there just isn't a problem, is there? There is a factor known as angolaglia, which means the willingness to bear pain whose cause appears to contribute to one's beauty. (See William Rossi's Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe, an excellent primer on all things shoe and foot fetish and the attendant psychology. Look it up on Amazon.) So after spending many years trying to "talk some sense" into (particularly) the women who do this slow, steady damage to themselves, I finally had my eyes opened by an elderly woman who responded to my suggestions by saying (quite bluntly, as I recall,) "young man," (I was, once,) "men do not pursue women whose body has no form, and whose walk has no motion." Well, she sure shut my mouth. Trying to talk sensibly to a woman about healthy shoes is like trying to convince an alligator to adopt a vegetarian diet. A complete waste of time.
In my case, there is no willingness to bear the pain, there is only its inevitability. And as for beauty? Ask my beautiful wife. I'm the furthest from objectivity when it comes to my glorious mug.
The negative on the night splints is how they have caused me to regurgitate old memories. As a child, I had to wear similar night splints, as I've mentioned in a prior post. But now, I have dreams of that period, and they ain't pretty, ya dig? Though these present day splints are made of plastic and velcro, and are significantly more comfortable by comparison, getting up to hit the head in the middle of the night is nearly as bad as the first time. Hence the dreams, I suppose.
I recently read an article on folks who suffer from Charcot-Marie-Tooth's Disease. I remember making shoes for a number of such folks back in the day. I am struck by the similarities, not of the conditions themselves, per se, but how post-club feet, CMT Disease, and even MS, of how the conditions are experienced by those who have to contend daily with them. Chronic pain, the every day knowledge that you will only get worse (though without any firm timeline, degree of change, or speed of deterioration knowable by you or by the medical community,) the constant awareness of needing to plan your day so as to avoid any unnecessary efforts, a background buzz of staying at least moderately aware of the surfaces you walk on, the shoes you wear and their balance or lack thereof, and more.
I know for myself, and for many others I have made shoes and orthotics for over the years, it might only be a difference of one degree of wear on my shoes, or having to negotiate ten blocks of city streets with slanted sidewalks, to set off a long bout of both foot and, by extension, lower back pain (compensation at work,) though the effect of the slanted sidewalks can sometimes be offset by walking back in the opposite direction, but on the same side of the street (this just unbalances you in the opposite direction, and while no less problematic for my feet, can at least stave off the painful back a while.)
I have long been aware of how I notice the way in which other people walk - that's partly a hazard of those years of doing gait analysis - especially when I see their badly-worn shoes, or the women who wear those six-inch spikes and walk with a distinct wobble. I know from long experience working with such people when they get older, and the toll of that need for attention finally grabs their attention in unpleasant ways, that it could all be avoided. But when you do not suffer from chronic pain, there just isn't a problem, is there? There is a factor known as angolaglia, which means the willingness to bear pain whose cause appears to contribute to one's beauty. (See William Rossi's Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe, an excellent primer on all things shoe and foot fetish and the attendant psychology. Look it up on Amazon.) So after spending many years trying to "talk some sense" into (particularly) the women who do this slow, steady damage to themselves, I finally had my eyes opened by an elderly woman who responded to my suggestions by saying (quite bluntly, as I recall,) "young man," (I was, once,) "men do not pursue women whose body has no form, and whose walk has no motion." Well, she sure shut my mouth. Trying to talk sensibly to a woman about healthy shoes is like trying to convince an alligator to adopt a vegetarian diet. A complete waste of time.
In my case, there is no willingness to bear the pain, there is only its inevitability. And as for beauty? Ask my beautiful wife. I'm the furthest from objectivity when it comes to my glorious mug.
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