Easy Steppin!

Yep.  These feet are feeling better.  So much better!  Kind of weird how it happened, but I'll take it.  I decided that over this past weekend, I was going to take it easy, try to rest, keep the foot up as much as possible (wasn't all that successful), keep it iced and just do everything possible to try to treat this problem, which I think is metatarsalgia. 

The pain was horrible over the weekend.  The only way I could tolerate walking was by wearing an old pair of walking shoes I have with a gel insert in them, but even that got very uncomfortable after a while.  Still, since we have 50 percent hardwood floors and tile, it was a necessity.  I kept taking the Motrin as well.  Saturday....not good, and I was really down in the dumps about it.

Still, Sunday, I woke up with a positive attitude, I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing and get over it.  Again, I iced it, used the foot bath with some Epsom Salts, tried to keep it elevated, iced it, wore the walking shoes, rested it (sort of).  No luck.  Still so so very painful.  In order to get across the room without my walking shoes on, it was necessary for me to actually walk on the outside part of my foot.  And as a result of the way I've been walking to favor the foot and also because I'm basically just sitting on my rear end, my whole body was achey. 

In order to change things up a little, I switched from Motrin to aspirin.  Hey, ya never know, right?

I decided enough was enough.  I had been reading about some "foot exercises" to do to treat metatarsalgia.  But how could I do foot exercises when I could hardly stand?  Well, we're not going to know until I try it.  So off to the step in our doorway I went, stood on the very edge of the step on the ends of my feet almost on my toes, and did the exercises, dropping my heels and coming back up, dropping my heels and then coming back up, 10 times.  Then lift up on the fronts of my feet and then back down, up on the fronts of my feet and then back down, 10 times.  Okay.  Not so bad.  Didn't hurt that much.  At least I feel like I'm stretching the muscles in my lower legs a little.

I sat for a while and started thinking again how much I wanted to move, just stretch even, because I was so achey.  I suggested to my husband that maybe if he pulled that Pilates ball out of the basement and cleaned it up, maybe I'd trying using that for a little exercise.  And I did, for 30 minutes.  Actually, I enjoyed it.  It was funny seeing how uncoordinated I am when I try something new. 

Here's the interesting part of my boring story.  After my 30-minute "ball workout", I sat down on the recliner to watch some tv.  After about a half hour, I needed to get up to get a drink.  So I stood up and  walked right across the carpeted floor, no shoes, then got onto the hardwood floor, and stopped.  What?  Did that just happen?  I'll say that about 80% of the pain was GONE!  What?  I continued walking into the kitchen onto the ceramic floor.  What?  Still, most of the pain was gone. 

Weird, right?  Yesterday morning, got up out of bed and walked carefully across the floor testing the foot.  Amazing!  The pain in the ball of my foot is almost completely gone!  There is a little tenderness but almost nothing compared to the horrible I have been having for the past two weeks.

I'm still doing the foot exercises, twice a day, and still iced it on and off yesterday as well as the foot bath.   Today I may decide to test it a little further and go for a little walk around the block.   I have appointment with the foot doctor on Thursday.  Think I'll probably keep that appointment so I can get an idea from him what's going on.

And now can get back to that running store and get evaluated for new running shoes!  Yeah!

Did the pilates ball workout again last night.  I am definitely feeling it in my abdomen and lower belly.  There was one exercise that I just couldn't do last night, because every time I tried, I got a cramp in the back of my thigh.  So I know I'm working muscles that haven't been worked lately.  That's ALWAYS a good thing!