Thursday, July 26, 2012

Toe Rolls to Protect my Toes from Tics!

Ever heard of toe rolls?!?! Well I sure haven't! At least until today! Let me explain.

A little while ago (in April), I wrote a post about my toe problem in which my feet and toe tics have been damaging my toes. My feet and toe tics which involve bashing my feet up against the top of my shoe, moving and curling my toes inside of my shoe, or hitting my feet and toes against the side of a chair if i'm sitting, are causing a lot of damage to my two big toes. For more than an entire year now my two great toes have been severely discolored and bruised with large amount of blood under the toes nails. They also have ridging, which is basically when the toe nail splits horizontally. 


So in an effort to fix this problem, I've seen three different doctors! My pediatrician who referred me to a skin doctor who then referred me to podiatrist (a doctor who deals only with feet). Today was my appointment with the podiatrist. When the doctor walked into the room and saw my toes, he said "Wow you must play a lot of sports" because he assumed I had trauma from kicking a ball or having my feet kicked. 


By the end of the appointment he was convinced that yes, my feet movements must be the culprit for my toe problems and did three things for me, two of which I did not like at all! 


The first thing he did was take off half of my toenail.....This was not pleasant at all! He literally took off half of each toe nail on my great toes with pliers and with an electric nail file. My Sensory Processing Disorder did not like this! I can't even stand having manicures or pedicures or even having my finger nails or toe nails clipped, so you can image how difficult it was for me to have half on my toe nail removed!! I was clenching every muscle in my body, wincing, and digging my fingernails into my hands!! My mom thought this was funny, lol. If only she could feel what it felt like inside of my body when my toe nails were being ripped off! I can't even walk around bare foot because anything touching my feet or toes bothers me so much, so this was torture!! He told me he needed to do this though in order to remove the damaged nail which could become a breeding ground for bacteria and fungus if it was left all bruised and ridged. 


The second thing he did was give me an anti-fungal medication which I have to put on my toes two times a day for the next year because the ridging in my toes could be a place where bacteria could start to live....great. 


And then the third thing he did was give me toe rolls! lol, so toe rolls are these cushioned rolls that I now have to put on each of my great toes. He says that they will help my toes stay safe when I am doing my toe movements and that the cushions will take the blows instead of my toe nails. Hopefully I have finally found the solution to protecting my poor toes from getting all bashed up! Now for now, i'll just have to be styling these new toe rolls. Pretty snazzy, huh? 







1 comment:

  1. I am having the hardest time keeping shoes on my son, who is nine and also has Tourette's! He does this toe dragging and toe tapping thing that it ruining his shoes faster than I can afford to replace them - although I do keep replacing them because he can't just not have shoes. His dad started disciplining him for it until I pointed out that he wasn't being "lazy" or careless, I was pretty sure it was a tic. (Which was funny coming from him, anyway, seeing as he drags his own right foot due to residual damage from a severe car accident 15 years ago.) Anyway, he does has toe nail fungus and it is a nightmare! And it has caused him to lose his toe nail - completely - a few different times! So keep up the toe maintainence - it is well worth it! I'm curious, though. Does the toe rolls work for you? I am wondering if you feel relief from your toe tics with the toe rolls on and the feeling to your toe buffered like that or if it just agitates the situation.

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