Lura Thoughts

Yoga Toes Revisted

It's been almost a full month since I received the Yoga Toes in the mail.  They don't look like much, just sort of bigger, squishier pedicure toe separators.  I also got the Yoga Toe vibrators, which sounds much more exciting than it really is.  The little vibrators attach to the Yoga Toes and make your feet vibrate at a high frequency.  Mine make the dogs bark, but they feel quite nice.

So after a month, what was my conclusion?  On Wednesday, I would have told you that I'm having huge success with them!  Unfortunately, Wednesday is my Deeptone class, and Wednesday nights is the teacher who is a cross between Gizelle from Enchanted, sweet and kind, and Jillian from Biggest Loser, mean and pushy.  "If you're not puking or fainting, then don't stop!"  Except that she says these things in the sweetest voice.  "Oh, Lura, you really need much more weight than that!"  "Lura, don't even think about using the 8 pound weights, you really need the 15's!"  This, of course, after my arms were so rubbery that I couldn't even lift my water bottle to my lips. 

Working out Wednesday night, Gizillian pushed me to use more and more weights with the various leg exercises.  I was fine with being challenged, because, after the broken toe, the bruised elbow, the wasp sting, and now the plantar fasciitis seemed much better, I felt like I could handle the challenge.  Admittedly, my foot felt fine during the entire workout.

The next day I could barely walk.

It was easily two steps forward, five steps back.  I've been nursing my foot back ever since.  I'm back to more motrin, icing, stretching, hot tubbing, and wearing the orthotics.  These were all of the same things I was doing before the Yoga Toes came in the mail, and they seemed to be working, but very s-l-o-w-l-y.  I'm hopeful that with the addition of the Yoga Toes, my foot will be back in tip top condition much sooner.  I'm keeping my toes crossed!

Yoga Toes?

Last week I  blogged about the fact that I have now given myself plantar fasciitis.  What that means is that I can no longer run, for sure, but also that every step that I take includes with it a varying amount of pain.  When I went to see the podiatrist, the pain was up to about a 6 (on a scale of 1 to 10) on bad days.  Now, after a steroid shot and orthotics, I'm down to about a 4 at it's absolute worst, and really it's more like a 1 or 2 for the time that I'm on my feet.  Not bad, but not good, and it's hard to work out in any meaningful way since I used to work out by walking, hiking or running with the dogs.  Even with the plantar fasciitis, I still need to get my yellow labs out every day or else they will eat my house.  Literally.  Think Marley and Me.

I've been doing everything the doctor has said:  stretching the foot and calf, icing it when needed, taking mortrin, etc.  But there seems to be a direct correlation between the amount of time that I spend on my feet and how bad my foot hurts, and I haven't noticed that it's been getting better since about the time right before Christmas.  At Christmas, I did a bunch of baking, and being on my feet so much seemed to exacerbate the problem.  The peanut butter balls and double chocolate crinkles were totally worth the pain, though.

So what's a person to do when nothing works?  The answer is simple:  find a solution on the internet!  After all, isn't the internet a bastion of knowledge?  Everybody seems to be an expert on the internet, knowing WAY more than the doctors do.

And what did my meandering through every plantar fasciitis article find out?  The only real solution to my problem is with Yoga Toes!  Yay!  Finally, a product that will help me.  Here's what they look like:

They are designed to improve the strength and flexibility of my toes and the tendons that attach.  I just ordered them and I am hoping they arrive this week.

Of course, I am absolutely ignoring the fact that these days, people are actually paid to push a product on blogs and comments and the like in order to make it look like lots of people have tried and loved this product.  I choose to believe that Yoga Toes will work for me.  I'll blog about them in the future and let you know.