Living with PN, do you find yourself retreating from life?

@ray666 quiet river Keep up the good work and that quote from Twyla Tharp is right on. I enjoy plaryng many games reading a lot I was averaging a book a day but now back to building and loving every minuet of it.Might I suggest maybe a sml stroller for your pouch. The handle would even give you some balance. A feed years ago in Arizona a fella walked by using a stroller and could barely move. I went out and talked with him and he said he had been sick and it was either force himself to walk or die. This gentleman had a lot of will power. Three months later he was walking without any assistance. and a year later was running. He said it was a real chalenge to begain with but with encoragement he kept going. He was in his late seventies then.

@xandermac this is quiet river Do you happen to have aurtheritis also. bunions and neurophaty? I have a friend that has those problems and sciatic nerve has the same provlems as you . I suggested she use Blue emp and Vicks vapor rub and start walking it helped her. as I was starting to have that same problem. I use both pain removers, but today I figure out that walking properly like on each step landing on your heals and rolling across the foot and using my toes as push off. My balance was great and my neuoroply feels alot better. I don't knw how tonight will be but tomorrow I will do the same thing. I also do infra red light and a vibrator on my feet All thise things make me feel better. Today I have already walked over one mile and just getting started. They say Neurophy startes from the lack of oxygen to the nerves of the feet or interpted as a Blood flow problem not letting your feet get the oxygen they need. If you are diabetic, over weight and have heart and blood pressure problems the medication you take also has side effect that cause a lot of these problems. I have found that walking and swinging your arms the best over all cure you can get. there is a lot of pain when you first start but seems to start to go away and our blood flow is returning to normal. I found in. my own life that a large lump over my heart was putting pressure on it and my lungs. I don't go to doctors as the first thing say it looks like cancer and want to cut you open and remove it. In the old days we treated ourselves and only went to a doctor when it was needed. So I used white bread and milk as a pollutes on it a few days then I got my finger under the lump and squeezed the lump getting a lot of pain and puss out of it. I used peroxied to check for infection and found none. As the puss came out the pain over several weeks slipped away. Now one monthe later the lump is gone and the large hole is reduced to nothing and healing very well. I found globs of stuff and old vains I believe is the remains from open heart surgery in 2007 that I believed may have been at least part of the cause. Now I have reduced heart problems and no more blood pressure problems. I don''t recomand this for anyone but for me it worked. I'm only telling this to get you to do some thinking about possible causes like lack of eating proper food, and excersizing that is the best healing power I have found. I wish you luck in what ever you try.

@ray666 Hi Ray something to think about. I do it all the time The biggest thing working for balance is the foot. I started b standing by the sink and lifting my heels up and stand on my toes. after I became used to it I started walking on my toes heels in the air. your toes are the key as far as the foot goes and as I walk I take a 32 " step coming down onthe heel and rolling off the toes. that give your step balance as you push off. works quite well also.even my neuorophy is starting to feel better from it. Hope you have happy valentines day I did. quiet river

Hello, @quietriver. More and more I'm hearing about the importance of strong toes, the big toes needing be the most muscular and flexible of all, if one is to have a shot at decent balance. My toes are a far cry from fitting that description. ::sigh:: There's a device out there called a Toe Pro (it was mentioned on a recent Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy webinar), intended help a lazy big toe recover some strength and flexibility. A Toe Pro retails for$69. (I read elsewhere that it might be possible to replicate the action of a Toe Pro using a rolled towel and some good strong tape. I tried. I ended up with something a terrycloth lump haphazardly bound in duct tape. In other words: a failure.) On Tuesday, when I see my PT next, I'm going to ask him if he thinks a Toe Pro would be getting. ––Ray (@ray666)

@ray666
Please let us know what your PT says about the Toe Pro.
Thanks.

I will, Joan (@joanland). My PT has what I regard as a healthy skepticism about high-promise products. I've mentioned a few other such products in the past, only to have him say, "I don't think so, Ray. There's not much evidence to back this up." But I will definitely let you know, Joan, what he has to say about Toe Pro. –Ray (@ray666)

@bjk3 Let us know how you make out on this new treatment plan.

@joanland Hi Ray nad joan. are you toes angled? from further if but for me starting to lift up on your toes worked the best of anything. I started sanding next to the sink os I had something to hang onto if I fell. Then lift my heel off the floor. and stand that way about 1 Minuet then I let the heels down for one Minute and the do it over again that way my own body weight is what I'm lifting. After a few weeks I walking unassistd on my toes for five minuets. tan a brake and did it ever again. Worked great for me . Dosen't feel real good the first few times but worked better as I went along. Good luck with your toe pro. let me know how it works.

@quietriver, Joan (@joanland)

My toes are definitely distorted, angled, and compressed. They look like they'd smashed into a cement wall at 100 mph. 🙂 It's going to take a lot to get my toes un-distorted, etc. But I work at it. I use a elastic band to give each toe a little isometric exercise. There was a time when I could walk about on my toes. That was a long time ago. But I'm going to work on my toes––see if it's possible to put even a little flexibility and strength back into them.

Cheers!
Ray (@ray666)

@ray666 My wife has that problem and I started working with her feet and toes. Before I started I have her soak them 20 min in hot water, Apple cider vingar and Epson salts. this tends to loosem them up little to a little allow a little more flexibility in moving and bending them, flexing the foot and toe as all muscels have to be lossen. Working the toe back and forth and side to side. I found that if you work a part of the body that is stiff and not bendiing or flatting them out by flexing the joint, spreading apart into the proper position I didn't get them streighten out but gave the more flexibility slowly working you can expand the movement trying to them back into the Norman position very slowly. But you have to be very care full not to use to much pressure as the bones in older people are very brittle and you will break them very easy. after about three weeks working on her toes 20 min each tine. They were seperated some and she was able to move the toe' s easier. They still wasn't streight but doing better at becoming that way. after each session I would them hold the streight streight for 15 Min to get to start getting used to that position. We were never able to get them streight, but it the seperating and flexing her toes did improve move ment of the toes and gave better balance. The feet is like anyother part of the body if you don't use it because of a little pain it will quit working. I' not a doctor or physical therapist but been around a few, Good luck my friend.