Persevering Momma

Taking The Day One Spoon At a Time

Lugz the Boots for the Winter Season

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I have loved Lugz boots from afar for years, but have been leary buying a shoe online when I cannot try it on seeing as I have so many problems with my feet.  I got crazy lucky when Lugz said that they would love to be included in my Holiday Gift Guide and sent me a pair of their winter boots for me to review.  I was allowed to select one pair of boots to review and after much debate I decided on the Tambora Boots in Charcoal/ Cream / Black.

Lugz logo

I was so nervous about getting these boots in the mail because I normally have to spend over an hour trying on shoes in the shoe store before I find a pair that I am somewhat satisfied with.  I am very glad that when these came I had no problems at all!!  If you are someone who has a disability or wonky feet you will understand why this is such a great success.  Let me tell you even more about why these boots are so amazing for someone like me as well as for any woman looking for some really attractive boots to wear during the winter months.

Why I love my Lugz Tambora Boots

I have a lot of problems with finding women’s shoes that will fit my feet because they are either too narrow or the toe box is not tall enough to give my room for my toes or the top of my feet.  If you have never seen what my feet look like then you wouldn’t know that I have the start of hammer toes and a very high arch with drop foot that creates a very tall foot.  My feet aren’t very wide, but generally my custom orthotics are a bit wider than my foot so I need a wider shoe to accommodate them.  These boots easily accommodate my feet and my orthotics.  (I tested them with my orthotics even though I am not currently wearing them due to my feet swelling from being pregnant.)

lugz boots reveiw

These boots are a medium width which I believe plays a part in why they fit my feet so well.  You can tell from the picture that these boots are lined on the inside so they are really warm and oh so soft!  My feet feel so cushioned seeing as they come with a real nice cushioned insole.  I am waiting to try these boots out in the snow and ice because they appear to have a lot of traction on the sole of the boot and they are covered in rubber on the base of the boot to keep them dry and warm during the bitter, cold winter months.

My disability causes me to have poor balance which makes the winter months very hard for me.  I tend to take a lot of falls in the snow and ice and this winter with me being pregnant I need to be extra careful.  I wouldn’t want anything to happen to my unborn child and these boots seem to be the perfect solution for me this winter.  Finally, to top these boots off they are crazy cute!!  I cannot get over just how cute these boots are.  I never really am able to buy cute pair of shoes so this made my day even more!  I love finally owning a pair of cute shoes that I could see other women my age buying.

Buy yourself a pair of Lugz boots today!

Zeta Insoles – Acupressure Review

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zeta insoleI was interested in these Zeta Insoles that use acupressure to help relief pain and discomfort on my blog because both my boyfriend and his father suffer from pain that simple in store insoles cannot seem to cure.  Before I let them sample them though I wanted to see how they felt.  It was mentioned to me that if you are tender footed you should ease into wearing these.  I definitely classify as being tender footed.   Because these weren’t going to be for me. I didn’t cut them and size them for my feet instead when I was sitting I put them under my feet while wearing socks (like I was instructed to do) for the recommended 20 minutes.


I was hoping that they might help me inn the end because they are recommended for use with diabetic neuropathy but my feet never were able to adjust to thee feeling even after days of just resting my feet on them and not walking in them.  Once I was done with them we trimmed them up and get them ready for my boyfriend.  Trimming them didn’t take much because they go up to a size 14 foot and he is a size 13.  He eased into them faster than I had been trying to do.  In the end he loves them in his shoes.  He says that they help to keep his feet from hurting so much and he can feel a huge difference when he is wearing them versus when he isn’t wearing them.

I attached their informational YouTube video because I think it does a great job of explaining what their insoles are and how they work.

Zeta Insoles Video

 

 

In addition, I was also mailed a surprise little gift that I wanted to mention in this review as well because we use it all the time. They sent me the Zeta Touch Stone – Acupressure Style. I hadn’t known I was getting this and didn’t know how to use it or what to use it for.  I read through the instructions and learned a lot.  We quickly learned that it would be great for the Tennis Elbow that both my boyfriend and his dad suffer from.  When not in use this is always in our freezer.

Both men say this clears up their Tennis Elbow fast just by rubbing it over the affected area.  Overall both products are great and are ones that I highly recommend.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

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Tips For Living With CMT

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Tips for living with cmt

Living with Charcot Marie Tooth Disease isn’t always the easiest thing to do, but you do want to keep yourself strong and active.  These are some tips for things that I have learned over the years that have helped myself and my mother out.  Many are very easy and are things that you can do on your own while relaxing or being busy through out your daily life.

Tips For Living With CMT

  1. Carry a stress ball or therapy putty with you everywhere.  Your hands are very important as you do not want to lose strength in them.  So, in those moments when you find yourself just sitting and waiting pull these out and work those hands.  Keep them strong.  This will help you keep some muscle and strengthen your hands.
  2. Stretch while watching TV.  This is a lot easier than you would think.  I will write up a post later on specific stretches but you can sit and do many of the stretches that I know you probably dreaded in school for the fitness tests.  Stretch out those legs and arms.
  3. Foot care is important.  Trim your toenails diligently.  You might not be diabetic but many of the same things apply to people with CMT.  If you have less feeling you want to check for sores and wounds on your feet.  If your feet are cold like mine make sure you keep them dry. Wet feet grow fungus.
  4. Get the right shoe for you.  If you have arches like me you need to worry about high toe boxes, and shoes that are built taller.  Do NOT buy a bigger shoe size instead buy a wider shoe.  Even if you wear AFOs and know your foot won’t move in the shoe you do not want a shoe that is too big length wise because it will increase the likelihood of you tripping over your feet.
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The CMT Foot

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How is the CMT Foot different from the average foot?

Pes cavus
Pes cavus (Photo credit: EUSKALANATO)

I know many people ask me how my feet differ from everyone else’s and they often ask this because they never see my feet. I tend to always have socks on my feet because they are so chilly.  Most Charcot Marie Tooth feet are what doctor’s call a Pes Cavus foot.  Before I took medical terminology in college I did not actually know what this meant.  All I knew what I have a Pes Cavus foot.  Isn’t that awesome?  It told me a lot… NOT.

Now, I was so excited to find this picture because it is going to show you a lot of what I am talking about.  As you can see the long bone in the arch that the big toe is attached to drops down drastically which the average foot does not have.  This bone placement is what causes the high arch of the foot.  You can see the difference in the second image that depicts the average foot.  You can see that there is a drastic change in the arch and toes as well as tendons of the foot.

Normal foot
Normal foot (Photo credit: EUSKALANATO)

Now that we have looked at and talked about that I want to point out how little of the foot actually touches the floor.  One day I want to get some paint and make my foot print on a piece of paper to show you just how little of my foot touches the ground and causes much of the balance problems that I have because of the CMT.  You can kind of see how little touches.  The foot will touch down on the heel, toe base, and along a thin line on the outside of the foot.  In addition to this “hammer toes” is very common among CMT patients where the toes curl and only the tips of the toes touch the ground.

A great way to show you what this feels like is to take your hand and put all of your fingertips onto the tabletop in front of you.  Your fingernails should be touching or almost touching the table and you now put weight down on them and you can get an idea of the kind of pain  that comes with standing on toes like that all of the time

CMT Creates Music: Tim John Phillips Interview

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cmt creates music

I read that you have Charcot-Marie-Tooth Disease, as do I. When were you diagnosed and have you been diagnosed with a specific type?

I have CMT1a, it’s the most common type of Charcot Marie Tooth Disease and for that I’m lucky as the most is known about it, but I’m the first case in my family, so no-one knew what to look out for and a lot of the symptoms seem like clumsiness in a child as I was growing up.

I was diagnosed haphazardly around the age of 18. I graduated from high school in England and immediately headed off on a coastal camping trip to celebrate, which was a lot more beach and beer than tranquil backpacking. I never did well on sand and sure enough i hurt my foot and it swelled up. It didn’t hurt though, so I carried on for a week before going back to my parents house. It was still swollen on my return, so my folks sent me to the doctor, who sent me to the hospital. After x-raying my foot the doctor was confused to inform me that not only was my foot broken (although it didn’t hurt), but there were 14 other fractures that had healed without me ever knowing and another 16 in my other foot. A long, drawn out process followed which narrowed it down to CMT and confirmed it with blood tests. Looking back, my parents knew there was something funny, but no-one could place it because I was missing the biggest clue; I didn’t realize I couldn’t feel my feet. Just like no-one would expect to feel something like their bones, I didn’t expect to feel my feet. It’s really hard to notice something you can’t feel.

 

cmt creates musicHow has CMT impacted your life? Has there been both positive and negative ways that it has affected you?

Ha! Yes, both I guess, but it depends when you ask me.

CMT is a really draining and annoying disease that varies from being inconvenient to painful quite unpredictably. Balance, fatigue and dexterity are my biggest issues, I’d certainly rather I didn’t have it. That being said it has quite definitely helped define who I am, and I happy with who I’ve become. CMT strongly influences what I can and can’t do in life, and when you can’t do something, there’s always another option. My restrictions are pretty much physical which has always pushed me to creativity as a solution or an alternative. An example, I love being outdoors but its hard moving around sometimes so I always rest. When I do I look around, talk, draw, sit, think – I do a lot of thinking. By not being physically able to do something makes me constantly question what I’m doing and pushes me into exploring new ideas in artistic ways. Another example is this fundraising project I’m working on, ‘CMT creates: music’. A lot of people would do something like get sponsored to run a marathon to raise money for charity, that doesn’t work for me so I decided to get sponsored to invent musical instruments.

cmt creates musicWhat made you want to start ‘CMT creates: music’?

It was a coming together of ideas. I had moved to California and begun attending a CMT support group where not only did my knowledge and confidence around CMT grow, but I also learnt about the CMTA’s research program towards finding treatments and a cure. This was shocking to me because at this group I was both meeting other people with CMT for the first time, AND they were talking about finding a (previously impossible) cure. At the same time I was feeling a yearning to get an art project going, one that was bigger than me and involved the excitement of unknown collaboration.

So I dreamt up this plan to get sponsored to invent new musical instruments. $500 = a new instrument. Each one would be invented by a different person and we’d post the whole process online, alongside personal stories of living with CMT. It’s this intersection where the project has been most interesting, allowing the two separate worlds to mingle and meet one another, even if only being read in the same blog post.

 

What is your goal with CMT Creates Music?

There are lots of goals and they’ve all been surpassed except one.

1. Spread awareness.

Thousands have viewed the website from 60 different countries. Most people around me, or connected to me can now tell you roughly what CMT is and many of their friends and their friends friends too. The project has worked well at bringing the topic of CMT, in an interesting and engaging way, to an audience that has little or no connection to the disease.

cmt creates music
They look like a crazy, fun bunch!

2. Raise money for the research – $5000 goal

This one we’re just short on, we’re at $4752… If anyone has $48 we’ll make our goal and I’ll make one more instrument! (Just follow the link… http://www.firstgiving.com/timjohnphillips)

Although we’re still looking for that last bit, I really had no idea we could raise this much money, people’s generosity has astounded me. I thought this might last a month or two, but with such enthusiasm and support we’re now 2.5 years in.

During that time the research has been going incredibly well. They’ve found the cause of CMT1a and the science behind how to treat it and are now working through all the rounds of testing. (You can read more about the CMTA StarTransformation Project.)

3. Create a collaborative art project

So many ideas and people have come together that it has far exceeded this goal.

  • Many CMTers have found a voice in their blog writing: opening up a new dialogue, one has gone on to have an award-winning blog following her very first post on our site: Nattering Nic
  • Many new friendships and connections are already spinning off into different projects.
  • The quality and ingenuity of the instruments created was unforeseeable, with such variation due to the breadth of the makers.

cmt creates music

 

-We’ve used the instruments as a vehicle to discussion in many locations, but a huge highlight was being selected to perform the instruments at the renowned music festival, Thingamajigs. It was such an amazing moment to see where this project had led, from nowhere to center stage with 9 musicians and these incredible contraptions, all while carrying forward the voice of CMT. Here’s a video of the show, I hope there’s even more excitment to come:

 

 

 

Please have a look at our website and blog if interested:

www.timjohnphillips.com

CMT Creates Music Blog