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selenayIn the the never-ending saga of me and doctors, yesterday was my appointment
with the podiatrist.
Due to my hypermobile joints, my feet have always been a bit flat, rather
shallow and with a tendency to roll inwards. The rolling inwards thing
always seems a bit odd because most of my ankle injuries have been caused by
me rolling outwards on my ankles and spraining or dislocating them. I have
learned to accept that I am just odd, though.
As part of the project to check every system in me and make sure that I'm
getting the best care possible to keep me mobile, it was decided that a
podiatrist should be seen. This was the decisions of the specialist in
London: cue lots of grumbling from the local rheumy about whether it is
neccessary and whether it is cost-effective. Hmmf. Luckily it's my GP who
controls my access to podiatry services :-)
So yesterday I trundled down so they could give me the once over. For the
first time, someone actually read the medical report from London and made an
attempt to understand it. That endeared her to me immediately.
Then she turned around and said, "So you're not just hypermobile as your
form says, they're saying you actually have Ehlers-Danlos, correct?"
I blushed, mumbled and nodded because throughout the time that all of the
joint problems have been going on, most of the doctors are unwilling to use
the word "hypermobile" let alone describe it as EDS. The podiatrist then
explained that if the orignal referral note has said EDS then I would have
got to the rheumatology podiatrist rather than the orthapedic, would I mind
if she got her colleage in to observe and take over my case? Her colleague
was excited to be given her first EDS patient so I am now seeing a woman who
specialises in people with funny shaped feet caused by connective tissue
problems rather than bone malformations. Score!
The podiatrist asked whether I had ever been given orthotics before. Um, no,
what?
She was horrified that, despite all the doctors when I was a child, I had
never been refered to a podiatrist or had any kind of inserts in my shoes.
She doesn't often see adults like me who haven't had basic foot care! Heh.
I did the usual walking around, having people tap hammers on bits of my feet
and legs and reflex checks. The podiatrist then made me lie down on my front
with my feet hanging off the bed (my poor back!) so that she could take
casts of my feet while holding then in the 'correct' position. Not totally
comfortable, but not very painful either. Hot plaster of Paris feels really
quite odd on the feet!
The casts will be used to make inserts in my shoes to put my feet into the
correct position. We can't fix my feet (it's too late for that - orthotics
as a child might have helped, apparently) but we can get inserts that will
get me walking correctly and save some of the wear on my joints, hopefully
reducing my future pain problems. The podiatrist is getting them made of
medium density something with shock-absorption instead of hard plastic,
which should hurt my feet less.
It was weird having someone prefer using the EDS classification rather than
"just a bit bendy" or "hypermobile" because almost every doctor that I've
seen over the years has been reluctant to say that anything is happening,
never mind giving it a name. It's even stranger to realise that this is one
situation where using the name rather than a euphamism would have got me the
right treatment immediately rather than going to the wrong person: the
doctors seem to use their fear of me "seeing someone inappropriate" as the
reason why they refuse to put EDS on any of my forms.
So, it was informative and useful, something that I didn't expect. The new
insterts will be ready in six weeks and my new podiatrist will call me for
fitting then. Hopefully this is a yay thing.
When I started writing this, it was lunch time. Now it is nearly two hours
since I should have gone home and I am still here. It is one of those
Fridays again. And I've been "asked" to get up early on Sunday, log into my
computer and check that my reports have run. Gah!
Somebody has donated me a sign that says "Things are getting worse. Please
send chocolate."
It's totally appropriate.
In more cheerful news, it was the archery Christmas do last night. We
slaughtered paper reindeer and ate food. It was really good fun and I
remembered all over again why I love archery. The shooting is fun and I
enjoy the challenge, but it's also the social side of it that I enjoy. I
will definitely need to find a club no matter where I may end up living in
the future.
Somebody was trying to entice me with the idea of field archery, which I am
very interested to try out...
with the podiatrist.
Due to my hypermobile joints, my feet have always been a bit flat, rather
shallow and with a tendency to roll inwards. The rolling inwards thing
always seems a bit odd because most of my ankle injuries have been caused by
me rolling outwards on my ankles and spraining or dislocating them. I have
learned to accept that I am just odd, though.
As part of the project to check every system in me and make sure that I'm
getting the best care possible to keep me mobile, it was decided that a
podiatrist should be seen. This was the decisions of the specialist in
London: cue lots of grumbling from the local rheumy about whether it is
neccessary and whether it is cost-effective. Hmmf. Luckily it's my GP who
controls my access to podiatry services :-)
So yesterday I trundled down so they could give me the once over. For the
first time, someone actually read the medical report from London and made an
attempt to understand it. That endeared her to me immediately.
Then she turned around and said, "So you're not just hypermobile as your
form says, they're saying you actually have Ehlers-Danlos, correct?"
I blushed, mumbled and nodded because throughout the time that all of the
joint problems have been going on, most of the doctors are unwilling to use
the word "hypermobile" let alone describe it as EDS. The podiatrist then
explained that if the orignal referral note has said EDS then I would have
got to the rheumatology podiatrist rather than the orthapedic, would I mind
if she got her colleage in to observe and take over my case? Her colleague
was excited to be given her first EDS patient so I am now seeing a woman who
specialises in people with funny shaped feet caused by connective tissue
problems rather than bone malformations. Score!
The podiatrist asked whether I had ever been given orthotics before. Um, no,
what?
She was horrified that, despite all the doctors when I was a child, I had
never been refered to a podiatrist or had any kind of inserts in my shoes.
She doesn't often see adults like me who haven't had basic foot care! Heh.
I did the usual walking around, having people tap hammers on bits of my feet
and legs and reflex checks. The podiatrist then made me lie down on my front
with my feet hanging off the bed (my poor back!) so that she could take
casts of my feet while holding then in the 'correct' position. Not totally
comfortable, but not very painful either. Hot plaster of Paris feels really
quite odd on the feet!
The casts will be used to make inserts in my shoes to put my feet into the
correct position. We can't fix my feet (it's too late for that - orthotics
as a child might have helped, apparently) but we can get inserts that will
get me walking correctly and save some of the wear on my joints, hopefully
reducing my future pain problems. The podiatrist is getting them made of
medium density something with shock-absorption instead of hard plastic,
which should hurt my feet less.
It was weird having someone prefer using the EDS classification rather than
"just a bit bendy" or "hypermobile" because almost every doctor that I've
seen over the years has been reluctant to say that anything is happening,
never mind giving it a name. It's even stranger to realise that this is one
situation where using the name rather than a euphamism would have got me the
right treatment immediately rather than going to the wrong person: the
doctors seem to use their fear of me "seeing someone inappropriate" as the
reason why they refuse to put EDS on any of my forms.
So, it was informative and useful, something that I didn't expect. The new
insterts will be ready in six weeks and my new podiatrist will call me for
fitting then. Hopefully this is a yay thing.
When I started writing this, it was lunch time. Now it is nearly two hours
since I should have gone home and I am still here. It is one of those
Fridays again. And I've been "asked" to get up early on Sunday, log into my
computer and check that my reports have run. Gah!
Somebody has donated me a sign that says "Things are getting worse. Please
send chocolate."
It's totally appropriate.
In more cheerful news, it was the archery Christmas do last night. We
slaughtered paper reindeer and ate food. It was really good fun and I
remembered all over again why I love archery. The shooting is fun and I
enjoy the challenge, but it's also the social side of it that I enjoy. I
will definitely need to find a club no matter where I may end up living in
the future.
Somebody was trying to entice me with the idea of field archery, which I am
very interested to try out...
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-14 08:25 pm (UTC)Sounds like archery was fun :-).
Hope your weekend doesn't turn out to be a pain in the bum with work, though :-(.
Txx