I bought a scooter! 

Hi everyone, I hope you are well! 

I just wanted to tell you a little bit about the scooter I bought a couple of weeks ago. ✨🎉

Rolling off my feet causes pain 

The most annoying symptom from my small-fiber neuropathy (besides many others🙃) is that my feet get painful when I walk. This prevents me from doing most exercise, even though I'm fit and keen to walk. If the bottom of my feet hurt, walking is just not fun at all.🦶🏻🦶🏻🦶🏻

There are a few factors that contribute to my feet getting painful, such as warm temperature and increased blood circulation. But the most prominent one is that my forefoot gets painful when I roll off my feet with my whole weight on them, especially when I wear shoes that do not have a padded sole. Lyrica/pregabalin has helped quite a bit with other pain symptoms, but has not been able to fix exercise-triggered foot pain.

Whenever I walk in shoes with a hard sole, my forefoot feels like I am walking on gravel with bare feet. If I keep walking despite the pain, it eventually starts feeling like something is stabbing into the bottom of my forefoot and later also my heel. At its worst, it has felt as though a glass splinter was stuck in my forefoot, which prevented me from stepping on it at all. Luckily that hasn't happened in a while, probably also because I learned not to keep walking once my feet are sore.

How to avoid getting painful feet?

One of my ways to help with my foot pain is to buy padded shoes, such as Ugg boots, which have a soft lamb skin sole. But I will write about my shoes in another post. But even with padded shoes, I can currently not walk much more than 2000-3000 steps before my feet get too sore. 

Otherwise, I can ride my bike, which doesn't cause foot pain and it's a good way to get around. It's just not always practical to bring your bike, if you want to go for a walk with someone or so. 

Why a scooter?

A few weeks ago, I went to see my friend M and my lovely little godson, who is now two and a half years old. Like most little kids these days, he has a little scooter. We went for a tiny little walk and he was cruising around us. 

I thought, this may be a good option to get around with my painful feet as well. No idea why this hadn't crossed my mind before, because you actually see a lot of adults on the streets and walkways on scooters these days. 

Cruising on the scooter doesn't put pressure on my forefoot...

The good thing about the scooter is that you stand on one foot with your body weight on it, but you don't have to roll off it. You use the other foot to push off the ground, but you don't actually have too much weight on the moving foot either. 

 

I have gone for a few 'walk-cruises' with Steve. So far, my feet were doing considerably ok. I can still feel them getting warm and a bit irritated, but it's a lot better than when I try to walk. 

I'm hoping that I won't need it for too long, and that I'll be able to walk better again soon (🤛🏻 on 🪵🪵🪵), but for the time being it's a way that allows me to get out and about and to move my body a bit without being in major pain. 

It's so easy to get stuck at home....

Due to Covid, I'm currently working from home. I used to just go for a long walk every day to air my mind and get some exercise. However, when my feet hurt, it is so easy to just get stuck at home, because I try to avoid anything that makes me sore. 

But getting out is so important for the mind....

But I find that staying home for a few days in a row really has a toll on my mental health. It's so much easier to over-think everything and to get stuck with our own thoughts if you don't get out into the fresh air and move for a bit every day at least. 

So the scooter has been a good way to get out a little, which I find helps me a lot. So I thought I'd share this. Sometimes it's the most simple things that can have a big impact, but you just need to have the idea. So if you have neuropathy and you have trouble walking, this may help you too.🌺

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Categories: everyday living, lifehack