family feet

Auri has been having escalating problems with her feet. She started with sores on her Achilles from wearing ballerina shoes that didn't fit properly. Having her heels hurt caused her to put more pressure on the balls of her feet. Combined with the cleats and the increased pounding from soccer practice, the balls of her feet became increasingly painful...to the point that about 1-2 weeks ago she started walking on her heels with her balls up to avoid any pressure. Then, as predicted, yesterday her ankles hurt her so bad that she woke me up in tears at 6 something am.

We had been soaking in Epsom salts, stretching and massaging her feet thinking it was just soreness from the increased activity and cleats. However, it just seemed to be escalating not receding. So, I took her to the ER for eval (or lack there of as the case may be). A complete waste of time and money!! Diagnosis from ER doc: bruised feet from cleats, stay off feet completely for 1 wk, buy new cleats...realistic considering she has school- Not!

On the way to school, we stopped by Frenchtown Physical Therapy. They were great! After a thorough evaluation, they explained that her joints are hypermobile (move beyond the normal range of motion), they used the word "ridiculous" to describe her hypermobility (surprise, surprise and welcome to the family :); she has high arches and pronates (not a good combo..also not a surprise, don't you just love our genetics)); has comparatively tight medial ankle range of motion; All this combined with the previously mentioned factors related to wounds, cleats and increased activity, walking abnormally to try to reduce pain, escalated an already problematic situation into her current severely painful foot condition.

So, they taped her up really well, had her practice walking barefoot until she approached normal. She will need further gait training and lots of reminders to walk heel to toe and keep her feet straight. She walks with her feet wide, toes out and up (not even touching ground) and pushes off like a ice skater with each step instead of rolling through her toes and pushing with the balls of her feet. They also added pads under her metatarsals to relieve some pressure (which helped a lot in the beginning but was more painful by the end of the day); Told her she is not allowed to wear flip flops for 6 months, no ballerina shoes (or shoes without arch support); and to throw away her current shoes and get new ones. After watching her walk and seeing the conditions of the soles of her shoes, I had to agree. She would never learn to walk correctly in shoes she has worn down so completely. So after school, she hobbled home in tears, iced and took a lortab and ibuprofen. When she recovered enough to walk, a couple hours later, we went shoe shopping and bought her a couple of pairs of appropriate shoes and extra arch support insoles for her new sneakers. Between the PT, the shoe sales persons, Jan and myself hopefully we have finally convinced her of the importance of good shoes (over style).

She is very upset about not being able to play soccer and letting her team down and very hard on herself for not being as good as she wants to be. She will still go to soccer practice and the games, to support her teammates and to learn by watching and listening. We have another MD appt today to try to get an order to cover PT (required by insurance). So, once again we are spending money like it grows on trees...man I could use one of those trees :) Send her love and support, she needs it.

FYI Jamie chose not to play this year related to foot pain, so I will be taking him in for eval here soon also. I am sure he has the family feet also :) Yea...