The High Heeled Ruminations Of Melrose Plant

[mlroseplant]

I have not been forced to stand still for hours since my wife quit doing the "big" farmer's market a couple of years ago, I might have lost some conditioning by now, but I know that at church, I never think about how much I have to stand vs. how much I have to sit.

In other news, I had Christmas dinner over at my parents' house, as we do every year, their health permitting. One of the perennial guests is my ex-wife. To explain, the now adult son we had together is always there too. Anyway, my ex-wife was always a heel wearer. Not a high heel wearer, but a regular heel wearer, sporting 2-3" heels several days a week. Not that I would expect her to wear heels to come visit my parents, because she was never really that kind of heely girl, but I had noticed that her shoes have been completely flat for a couple of years. There's a reason for that.

I do not know how the subject came up, probably under the general category of "getting old," but she evidently had to have surgery on her left foot because of arthritis in the toe joint. She said before the surgery, it hurt to wear any sort of shoe, heel or not. She showed me how she can't bend her toes anymore into "high heel" position. Oddly enough, my sister has the exact same problem. My sister actually wore 3" block heeled oxfords for Christmas Eve service, but told me she had to get out of them as soon as possible because of the pain in her toe joint.

I am writing this because it really hit home. I also have a bit of arthritis in my toe joint, especially my right. Thus far, I have kept it at bay by doing ballet type stretching exercises every morning. But it does make me think that I cannot absolutely count on being able to wear heels forever. Hopefully it will be a couple of decades before I have to give them up, but there is no guarantee.

[Shyheels]

Time and age has its way with us all. I’ve no foot, knee or ankle issues, thankfully, but an old hip injury that flares up periodically. It doesn’t affect my heel wearing - I’d limp no matter what I was wearing, even if I was barefoot, but it’s certainly no fun and I regard it with a sort of disbelief - recalling how not so very long ago I used to routinely cycle 100 mile days (often much more) and before that I used to run marathons in reasonably competing times.

I know we all age but somehow I always thoughts they’d make an exception for me …

[Cali]

I can tell you that toe surgery is not for the faint of heart. I jammed my baby toe and it got stuck in the upright position. They went in and fixed that toe and the toe next to it had a 'hammer toe', so they removed the joint and put wire through both toes. At a farmer's market a woman backed into the wire and I let out a scream everybody at the market hear. But when they pulled the wires out I found a much high octave to scream at.  Don't mess with toes.

[higherheels]

It sure doesn't get better with time.

Hopefully we can enjoy our heels for a long time to come, even if there are some drawbacks.

I thankfully don't have any issues so far.

[CrushedVamp]

I can see where high heels would actually be good for the foot.

I recently had to get some work boots and decided to get professionally fitted for them. It was found out that my feet have gone from a size 9 to size ten. When I asked how that could be the guy told me its because my feet are flattening out and so my feet are getting longer, but also thinner.

So I could see where with heels, and your arch being formed solidity, it might actually help your feet, especially against backpain.

I once worked at a job where we had to wear steel toed boots with steel metatarsal plates and EVERYONE went to a chiropractor. It protected your feet from dropped steel, but also kept your foot from flexing with each step. Add in 10 hour days and something had to give and for all of us, it was our backs. 

[Shyheels]

I’ve had back troubles in the past - a ruptured disc a long time ago - and have found that heels really help. Not really high heels - I don’t think 10 or 12cm would help, certainly not 12cm! But 8cm chunky heels are really good.

When I had a kid I had a toe injury that had a very beneficial side effect! I was goofing around, running through the house (aged about 12j and managed to break my little toe on the leg of a table. It hurt. My foot swelled up and I couldn’t wear my shoes. It was winter and my mother had a pair of mid heel knee boots that I could get my foot into. And so my mother lent them to me. I was delighted. I secretly wished I could wear knee boots and here was my opportunity. I had sure to take a long time healing. But then winter ended and I had to give up my borrowed boots.

Looking back I realise that nobody - not a soul - commented in my wearing mid heel women’s knee boots. There it was - an open possibility to wear heels 

[mlroseplant]

1 hour ago, CrushedVamp said:

I can see where high heels would actually be good for the foot.

I recently had to get some work boots and decided to get professionally fitted for them. It was found out that my feet have gone from a size 9 to size ten. When I asked how that could be the guy told me its because my feet are flattening out and so my feet are getting longer, but also thinner.

So I could see where with heels, and your arch being formed solidity, it might actually help your feet, especially against backpain.

I once worked at a job where we had to wear steel toed boots with steel metatarsal plates and EVERYONE went to a chiropractor. It protected your feet from dropped steel, but also kept your foot from flexing with each step. Add in 10 hour days and something had to give and for all of us, it was our backs. 

This might explain in part why my feet have actually gotten smaller over the last 10 years. Not a lot, but certainly noticeable with picky fitting women's shoes. I am now solidly a size 9/size 40. Used to be more like a 9 1/2. 9 1/2 these days is always too big, even in boots. Not only do I wear heels, but I do arch strengthening exercises every day, twice a day.

I just had a go-round with safety last week. A junior safety guy finally noticed after 9 months that I wasn't wearing steel toes. He wouldn't let it go. I threatened to drag. The head safety guy came to visit me about an hour later, and said basically, "Well, if nobody has noticed in 9 months, I'd just let it ride. Just pretend that never happened." At least I don't have to worry about it until the next project now.

[Shyheels]

That reminds me of a story about “bunny boots” - the heavy white rubber boots issued by the US Antarctic Program and which they neurotically require to be worn. I like boots as a rule but I loathed those. Heavy, clumsy, like cartoon character boots they were extremely warm and utterly unbreathable. Horrible things. I was on assignment at McMurdo, South Pole and multiple USAP field camps one (Antarctic)  summer and was issued a pair of those. I’d brought my own pair of quite nice Scarpa mountaineering boots and was forever getting into trouble for wearing those instead of the mandated bunny boots. I vividly remember arriving at some remote field camp and the second I climbed out of the helicopter having some military type screaming at me for not wearing proper footwear.

My Scarpa mountaineering boots were a million times better than those ghastly white things that were literally designed for 1940s army polar expeditions