When COVID started, I used the 2 ½ months that we were closed to clean out almost every drawer and closet in our house. While spring cleaning last month, I found a drawer in my bedside table that I had overlooked- this drawer hadn’t been touched in years! Among the debris I found 14 pens, 5 of which no longer had ink. (you may be enjoying a greater collection of pens to sign in when you come to the office!) I also found 4 lip balms, mostly expired and dried up. I found scraps of paper and notes and cards made by my children, when they really were children. And I found 2 bunion spacers I used to wear.
For my entire adult life I have had bunions. For those of you don’t know what this looks like, my big toe points toward the outside of my foot instead of straight ahead. This leads to an increased drop of my arch and a bump forming on the inside of my foot, just behind my big toe. I don’t have a terrible case, it doesn’t need surgery, yet. It does affect my foot mechanics. For this reason, and because it doesn’t look nice, I have worn bunion spacers at different times in my life. I started when I was in my 20s and have worn them on and off. The pair I found was made of gel, fancier and newer than my first pair. I don’t know how many years it was since I wore them, but it was quite a while.
So I decided to wear them. My feet will never be beautiful, but misaligned toes are not a nice addition. I popped them between my toes, and my feet looked better, they felt better walking, and I couldn’t believe I had not been wearing these things all along. I wore them all day.
Now I prescribe orthotics for my patients, and I always tell people to introduce them gradually, wearing them for just an hour that first day and increasing the time slowly. I should have known better. I didn’t.
It was not a busy day- I wasn’t working and didn’t spend a significant amount of time on my feet. I had a nice quiet day and enjoyed a half hour walk with my family. I never experienced pain at the site of the bunion. What I did experience was a bunch of bizarre symptoms in other parts of my body. Periodically, while standing, I would get a slight buzzing in my hip like my phone was on vibrate in my pocket and someone was calling. I would check my pocket to find I wasn’t carrying my phone! I got slight muscle twinges or phantom pains in my calves, gluts and outer foot.
When I went to put the bunion spacers on again the following morning, it occurred to me that perhaps these were affecting my body. I like to think I am pretty “body aware”. I get regular Network Care, once or twice a week. I am generally good at recognizing and responding to the impact of tension in my body. My Dad, at some points in his life, was not particularly body aware. One day we discovered together that he had been wearing his orthotics in the wrong shoes. That is, he was wearing his left orthotic under his right foot and his right orthotic under his left foot! He wasn’t sure how long this had been going on, he had gotten used to it! Every day he had been carefully switching the right orthotic from his left walking shoe to his left tennis shoe and back and vice versa. It’s amazing what can become “normal”.
When I measured this bunion spacer, it was only 8 mm wide (less than 1/3 of an inch). The amount it was altering the angle of my metatarsophalangeal joint was miniscule, yet this minor change, improperly and suddenly applied, was impacting my entire body. My foot ached and had issues for several days after I had stopped wearing the spacers, even though it had experienced no direct symptoms at the time. If I had not corrected my error in judgement, I would have experienced more lasting injuries than the twinges I experienced.
We like to compartmentalize our bodies and our lives, ignoring the impact that one area has upon another. For instance, we can be unaware that a stressful deadline at the office is creating more tension at home and affecting our closest relationships, our sleep, our digestion, our inner peace. In the same way, a subtle injury can cause us to favour one joint to the detriment of another. When I was first in practice, I often felt like a detective, trying to figure out where a patient’s new complaint came from. Since transitioning to Network Care in our office, I have had to do much less of this, as the wisdom of the body will correct imbalance and patients often figure out on their own where and how they are damaging themselves.
It is important to stay in tune with our body, to have the lines of communication open. Network care and a variety of practices will help maintain our body awareness, as we discussed in the previous articles on “Connection”. Don’t forget to get in for a checkup, and remember that even little changes of 8mm in some areas of our lives will be impacting many other areas!