Another midweek update

Tuesday afternoon I went to a podiatrist down the street from our house whom Stephanie has visited. He looked at my X-ray from the Tallahassee walk-in clinic and my foot and shoes. He got more out of the X-ray than the walk-in clinic doctor did – He said from the X-ray it doesn’t appear that I have arthritis or plantar faciatis – Apparently, you can see calcium deposits on Stephanie’s foot X-rays, which are plantar faciatis indicators. The doctor gave me another prescription for an anti-inflammatory drug (same one that my regular doctor in Louisville prescribed) and told me to roll my foot over a frozen water bottle for 20 minutes every night (essentially, to ice my knee). I’ve done the former but only the latter sort of – and I’m about to travel for a week. In so many words, he said I probably have an incipient neuroma (Wharton’s or Morton’s). Even if it’s feeling better, I need to attack the inflammation by medication and ice so that it doesn’t get worse and subsides. Otherwise, if it gets worse, I might need surgery, which everyone agrees I should try to avoid.

I haven’t felt that sharp pain the front ball of my foot since I was in Tallahassee and since I quit wearing the fancy new running shoes I bought a month ago – that I had been wearing every day – for the first and only time – in Tallahassee. The podiatrist – during most of the appointment – rejected the foot mechanics theories – shoes you’re wearing, need orthotics or inserts, how you’re walking – that most people thought podiatrists like best. When I pressed him to look at my new shoes, however, he did agree that I probably need to take the special extra inserts I bought and had been wearing with them – that this was just too much padding. Amazingly, I found at home the original inserts that came with the shoe, and I will switch them out. However, at least in the short run, I’m superstitious and will not wear – I’ll take old sneakers (tennis shoes) – to California – those new shoes that I believe triggered my pain – at least for now. Occasionally, I still feel odd pain here and there (including this morning in my shin) and yesterday as I drove into Stephanie’s school I felt a split second of sharp neuromic pain – and in this case I was braking and so taking my foot momentarily off the break wasn’t very safe.