Mel has chronic back problems that go back to our early years together. When René (daughter) was in high school, she played volleyball, and came home one day complaining that when she'd "jump" on the court, she'd hit her inner ankle bones on the ground upon landing. I debated a while, and decided that a visit with a podiatrist (foot doctor) was in order. I lucked upon finding a genius doctor, who changed our lives.
Doc (since retired) didn't take long figuring out the problem, the tough part was convincing me the necessity of spending about $400 to correct it. This was in the latter 70s, and that was a lot of money, back then. Anyway he showed me that her beautiful, high arches disappeared entirely when she stood. She had flat feet—and yes, her ankles did hit the ground when she'd jump. The treatment was shoe inserts. And the necessity of getting them for her was to prevent (among other things) back problems! He explained that 30% of back problems are actually foot problems.
The next step, of course, was to take Mel to the podiatrist. After doc saw Mel, he announced that he knew where René got her flat feet! Mel got inserts too, and has done pretty well since. A while back, (1-2 years) one of the inserts broke! We still had the plaster molds of his feet, and called the office of the genius doctor (the replacement doc trained by genius) in Wichita. Not only would they make new inserts if we mailed the molds, but the insert was warranted, and the broken one wouldn't cost us anything. The catch was that they could only do them in pairs, and we'd have to pay for the second one. Deal! So we got the deed done via telephone and mail!
More on the back/foot problems later. Huge hugs!
3 comments:
That's great Katy. We have a grandson that has flat feet and we keep telling our son and daughter in law that they better do something about it, but so far nothing has been done and he's 18 now. Someday they are going to be very sorry and our grandson will be the one to have the problems.
I went for an insert I wear in my shoes that was on one of those info mercials on TV. I have walked better every since. I believe what you did for daughter and hubby was super right!
One of my cousins has flat feet. I gave her a foot pump.
*giggle* couldn't resist that one.
That really was a lot of money back then. Come to think of it - it still is. :] But worth every penny when it cuts down on pain.
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