Proof of Pain

Some time ago, I wrote about how I am rather adept at injuring myself in bizarre and unusual ways. I closed out my post with the rather unbelievable claim that I'd once been stabbed in my big toe with an eyelash. As expected, most people gently skirted around the issue, not quite saying they didn't think that could really happen.

Well, folks, today I offer up proof. After dragging myself out of bed this morning, and believe me I really didn't want to, I noticed some pain in my left foot. I broke a light bulb the other day and thought perhaps I'd stepped on an errant sliver, for it was the kind of pain one gets from a slender sliver of glass.

I brushed the bottom of my foot off and saw nothing. I also felt no relief. It wasn't terribly painful so I went ahead and made some mint tea. The pain was persistent, however, and becoming annoying so I pulled up a chair underneath the bright overhead kitchen light to see if I could see reflection off the glass in my foot.


First, though, I needed to brush this little white hair off the bottom of my foot. Hm, no, it turns out the little white hair was the problem. Hubby walked by just then and I made him grab the camera so that I can finally offer you proof.


Yes, I do get hairs stuck in my feet, and yes, it hurts, dammit.

Going on a tangent here, observant readers might notice the little toes are curled under a bit. This is not due to the pain of the embedded hair - it wasn't that bad. It is the unfortunate result of finally succumbing to the last option - surgery - offered by my podiatrist to treat really bad plantar fasciitis almost twenty years ago.

The plantar fascia is the band of tissue that runs down the bottom of your foot, attaching to the middle of the heel and the back end of the ball of the foot. It can become inflamed - "itis" means inflammation of whatever word is in front of it - making it incredibly painful to put weight on the foot.

Many people easily resolve this by simply doing stretches. The calf stretch also stretches the plantar fascia. However, some of us do not respond to simple treatment. After all, pushing on a shovel for two weeks in hard, rocky soil while wearing tennies can really do some damage, especially if you don't know that you should never, ever push with your instep. So, my course of treatment proceeded through all the options: anti-inflammatory drugs - both oral and injected directly into the foot, taping, custom orthotics (not covered by insurance), massage therapy, electric stimulation, and finally surgery.

Choosing to have the plantar fasciotomy surgery was a mistake, but at the time I was desperate for relief from the pain. Instead, I got new pain that has come and gone over the years, initially neuritis (inflammation of the nerves) and currently Morton's neuroma. And my toes curl under more on that foot. I have always loved that my toes were nicely shaped and had beautiful symmetry. Not any more.

I wish I had known prior to allowing a doctor to slice through an inflamed part of my body that I had another option for reducing the inflammation and resolving the problem without such drastic intervention. I refused surgery on the other foot so I was still dealing with the plantar fasciitis pain for it. After reading about the link between the protein in dairy and inflammatory conditions, I removed all dairy from my diet. In two weeks, my pain was reduced by 95%. By adding dairy back to my diet, even in just one meal, I could make the pain return.

I had the key to controlling the inflammation simply by choosing what to eat. Why, oh why, didn't I discover this before the surgery?! The neuroma on the cut foot does not respond positively to diet, but I can still control the plantar fasciitis on the other foot by what I eat. Yes, almost two decades later, choosing to eat white chocolate and a pizza with cheese will still cause inflammation of the fascia and result in foot pain. Better to stick with dark chocolate and cheeseless pizza.

Nothing, however, will uncurl those toes on the left foot and I just hate that. But I have digressed far from my original post topic. Moral of the story: wear boots when shoveling and press with the ball of your foot, and be willing to experiment with what you eat to see if it makes a difference. Oh yeah, keep your floors clean; those hairs are vicious!