Thursday, June 2, 2016

A good follow up appointment with my podiatrist

Bit of good news today..... Over the past few years I have been working with the Podiatry department of my local VA facility to try and get some good shoes and custom orthotics developed so that I can have as normal of a gait as possible.... After my TM onset, I lost all muscle strength in my lower legs and my ankles also had no strength so when I walked, my feet and ankles would bend in and I would walk on the inside of my feet... I also became a heel walker and all of my weight was placed on my heels.... Because of all of this I eventually developed Plantars Fasciitis and that made it excruciatingly painful for me to step on any sort of slightly hard surface if I was in my bare feet. I started seeing the podiatrist at the VA...she is a specialist with the types of problems I have... My first thing was that I needed a good pair of athletic type shoes that had some decent tread on them...... My very first pair were like walking shoes and had very flat bottoms on them and during the winter I could barely walk because I would slide all over and I fell a few times because of that. So, shoes with some tread helped there... Then they worked on some inserts to help cushion my heels...after about three different types of inserts they decided to make custom molds of the bottoms of my feet and they made me some custom inserts.. Those worked for awhile....a couple of years actually, and during one of my appointments they noticed that my walk pattern was terrible... The entire inside part of my soles was wore away and the outer part was hardly touched.... So, new custom molds were taken of my feet.....and new inserts were made... When I got the inserts I was looking at them.... These suckers were high tech....made out of some serious rubber type material but with these silicone inserts in a couple of places.... They were made to help correct the way my feet and ankles would bend in when I walked.... Well, today I had a follow up appointment. It's been 6 months since I got the newest shoes and inserts.... and my podiatrist was extremely happy.... My pressure pattern on the inserts was perfect and the wear pattern on the bottom of my shoes was also perfect... I had a couple of spots where the inserts were rubbing callouses on my feet so she took some stick on teflon pads in the areas where my feet rub and she said that those should take care of the rubbing. I honestly don't notice a difference that I remember, with the way I used to walk prior to these new inserts but my podiatrist assured me that if they hadn't figured this out, I would have continued to get worse and worse and it would have caused much more problems down the line with trying to walk. I still have occasional problems with the Plantars Fasciitis and that's not gonna go away but at least now, these inserts make a little less painful to walk when the PF is acting up.... I still walk like a gimp with my cane, but at least this gimp walks flat on my feet now.... :-) A little video to close with.... Till Next Time......