Paying closer attention to my habits and activities has been on my list of to-dos. Things I do on a daily basis as well as those new activities I introduce to my body every so often. For instance, I wore high heels to a friends’ wedding. I haven’t done that for years. I found myself in the sitting position for most of the ceremony and reception so I kicked off the heels hoping my feet didn’t turn into Barbie feet, I thought I would be alright.
Nope.
Tightness, stiffness, numbness and shooting pain from my hips down for 3 days afterwards. Even pain to the touch on my lower extremities. (What we do for our friends, huh?)
Obviously my body was screaming pain at me. What we know about pain is it is an indicator of a need to change something. I got the message my body was sending to NOT wear heels.
Interesting, I thought. These are symptoms I hear my clients complain about often. What in the world did those cute little dang heels do to me! Well, besides the fact that my body isn’t adapted to the form of heels, my calf muscles are shortened, and my ankle is in a awkward, funky plantar-flexed sort of fixation. I am also not walking at my normal gait. Not to mention, the other issues such as poor back posture which puts strain on the nerves housed in the spine, which in turn caused that nervy obnoxious shooting pain, numbness and pain on touch feeling I was having. Then there are the toes, squashed down further into the shoe due to gravity.
Lovely little cute heels.
I see them now as those cute little gremlins, they are cute until you get them wet! Remember the movie Gremlins much?
For more information on the effects of wearing “gremlins” and how to stretch your feet see this link…
It really matters how we care for our feet since it will eventually affect our legs, gluteus muscles, sciatic nerve, backs, and neck among other structures. The feet do so much for us. They take us everywhere we go. I believe our bodies tell us when something is wrong, we just need to listen. This experience was a great reminder for me to take care of my feet and not push through the pain.
