Saturday, August 9, 2008

Baby got a new pair of orthotics

I had a visit with the Foot Whisperer, a.k.a. Mark Fournier and Fournier Foot Care in Northampton yesterday. It's the bastard plantar fasciitis. It's dogging me at every turn! I can't seem to get better for real. I get sort of better-ish, then I try to cut back on the anti-inflammatory and I'm back at square one.

That's not how a person gets better from something.

On top of that, it was seeming like the painful foot massage was no longer helping - and was in fact hurting.

Suddenly, I was floundering around on the deck, not sure what to do next.

I decided to go back to my acupuncturist. I've had a couple sessions. We talked together about what to do next. She was looking at my feet and noticed these weird callouses I've developed because of the orthotic I got from my podiatrist. She said that she didn't think an orthotic that fit me should put callouses all over my feet.

Funny, because when I first got the orthotics and was feeling uncomfortable about the callouses, my podiatrist gave me a cock and bull story about how sometimes people get callouses from orthotics.

So I made an appointment with Mark and saw him yesterday. He said callouses are from rubbing, and a person's foot should not be rubbing their orthotic. If it's rubbing, it's not supporting. He took my orthotics and said he was going to try to modify them to work better, but as soon as he started taking them apart, he came back to me.

He said that he couldn't really fix them because they were basically all wrong. He wanted to make me a new one.

Secretly, that's what I wanted too.

To fit me for an orthotic, my podiatrist took a plaster cast of my foot and that was that. Mark made me stand in this contraption and looked at how I stood, looked at the alignment of my knees, back, everything. He took an impression of my foot and said, "Come back tomorrow."

Less than 24 hours later, I'm in a new orthotic. As soon as I put it on, I noticed a real difference and one of the near-constant pains in my foot seemed to subside. Immediately. Of course, other parts of my foot are feeling the pinch right now; getting used to a new orthotic always takes a little while and can be a little uncomfortable. Mark and his partner Les told me that if I wasn't seeing a distinct reduction in pain in two weeks to come back and they'd make adjustments.

I'm hoping that I never see them again. Not because I don't like them, because I like them both very much. I just want this motherfucking, bastard plantar fasciitis the hell out of my life.

Meanwhile, Mark carries shoes for giant lady feet. He's ordering some shoes that will fit me, and I won't be allowed to leave unless they do. Thank god, because those $130 shoes I bought several months back ended up not fitting me, but I didn't find out until I wore them three times, and so they were unreturnable.

Aside: Does anyone want a pair of these shoes in an 11WW?

Aside: I wish that when I started with the bastard plantar fasciitis that I had started a tally of exactly what I spent on it. I imagine that I'm close to $5,000 at this point. Motherfucking plantar fasciitis!

Anyway, I've got high hopes. Wish me luck. I'd like to be able to walk around like a normal person again soon and leave my gimpiness behind.

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3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh, Jennifer, I am so happy for you and your feet, it verges on the odd.

Here's hoping indeed that the foot whisperer holds the key to happy feet for Jennifer Myszkowski.

As for the pricetag for the Bastard so far, all I can say is, "Ouch!"

August 11, 2008 at 4:36 PM  
Blogger Liz said...

Do you still have those shoes and want to give them away? I would love them. I have the tie version and they are the most comfortable thing I've ever worn. And, those are my size. I know this post was a while ago.

April 23, 2011 at 1:57 PM  
Blogger Jennifer Myszkowski said...

Sorry, Liz. I gave them away already.

April 24, 2011 at 9:55 AM  

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