Toes Tell a Lot About YOU; Morton's and Hammer Toe, to Plantar Fasciitis, Joint Hypermobility .... TMJ Even!(?

Do YOU remember the ditty we learned to sing as children about the this bone connected to the .. that bone, and the that bone connected to the ... other bone.  I think it's a great place to start when educating people about how it is our toes and feet tell us so much about what is going on in the body, including nutritional deficiencies.                                                                                                                                                                   

"Morton's Toe" is something that has become a frequent term I hear from some of the providers who are part of the team at Lumigrate. Others have not heard of it, or have but haven't really studied about it recently. I'm curious if YOU have enough experts on your team of providers to help you, if this is a factor and of interest to YOU.  I have suggestions of who you might learn from, here at Lumigrate, and follow out to learn more from their websites and take the initiative to contact them and inquire further.   WHO WOULD YOU ADD? Ex: I HAVE A DO, 2 MDs, etc.

This is the first piece of 2013 where I've put something out broadcasting 'to all'; in late 2012 we had two pieces related to Gary King, RPh, of ITC Compounding and Natural Wellness Pharmacy which served all of the US and beyond from Castle Rock, Colorado, saying our goodbyes and thanks before he passed on 12/21/12, and for Amazing Alice, who was diagnosed with breast cancer and started treatment in the same time period. So now we're kind of getting back to 'business as usual' at Lumigrate.  

(Update edit: Alice passed in 2016 and had done a Facebook status update from what was essentially her death bed, talking about how she was concerned about the people who turned to her for support through Facebook ..... and asking us to "each one, reach one".  So I've provided a tribute about that on Lumigrate as a result.)

Happy New Year to all, and my wish for all in 2013 is that it is the year that increasing numbers of people become more 'active' (or 'proactive') and 'take action'/'take charge'.  There are overwhelming amounts of information sources out there, many of them very good, and I find that people are basically 'listening' and 'learning', to some extent, but often stop short of 'doing'.  

Just a few of the 'mottos' around Lumigrate are: If you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to get what you've got. There is no one to blame, there is only take action! Live and Learn.. Learn and Live Better!  Nike brand had the famous "Just Do It!" .... think about if you're DOing, or just Think-ing.

Frank Gresham, a trigger point therapist, is to thank for inspiring me to start this new topic today as he posted a photograph that caught my attention on Facebook: for one thing, I'd just wished him a HAPPY BIRTHDAY on my wall, and shared the link to his topic at Lumigrate that kicked off having him be part of the team of experts at Lumigrate.  He shared about his history of pain, then addiction to pain medication from mainstream providers, rehabilitation for the addiction and finding trigger point therapy that removed his pain. .... he then went on to study and become a therapist offering that technique. And do outreach online, and therefore a provider at Lumigrate for our YOUsers' benefit.

The feet in the photo he posted looked EXACTLY like my feet, and the nails even had a similar color to the last time I had a professional pedicure, which actually coincided with when I badly stubbed the 'big' toe on my dominant (right) foot, while cleaning house preparing for a friend to visit. We were going to celebrate it being spring and my birthday by going to get pedicures together. Not something I normally do, I'm too cheap and don't like the fumes and other things you're exposed to in those types of businesses, but it is fun to do here and there with gal pals who 'are into that kind of stuff'.

I'm glad that photo Frank shared caught my attention, as he'd seen that it was an example of Morton's toe, which tends to coincide with many chronic illnesses and is a very obvious 'thing to evaluate' by many types of medical providers.

So I did a little polling of people who I know are working for years at their wellness/illness to overcome chronic complex illnesses, and few heard of Morton's toe. Many knew of plantar fasciitis but really didn't have much knowledge about what can cause it, and what can be done to overcome it.  Naturally, I look at things from a functional and integrative, collaborative team approach, meaning you're going to have your best outcome typically if you look at things as not being 'one thing causes another', but 'many underlying things contribute to wellness/illness symptoms'.  Work on those underlying things and .... solve the problem, don't just ongoing be stuck treating the symptoms (which is what mainstream, allopathic medicine does in almost all aspects).

I know my natural wellness pharmacists have had me check myself for Morton's toe when talking by phone remotely for advise, or if I was there in person as I was twice, they had me take off a shoe and sock and show them.

They are, naturally, "sizing all kinds of things up" about you in that talking time, but in their case they operated many years by telephone with their patients, supplying compounded medications, including hormones, as well as supplements to patients in all 50 states. This is ITC Pharmacy I am referring to, and 75% of their patients came to them because of their recognized expertise in the US with fibromyalgia and fatigue, adrenal fatigue, environmental illness, etc.  

I learned about ITC from Dr Marc Spurlock of Dallas after he had become a regular expert providing information at Lumigrate.com. You can find much information from both parties at Lumigrate, if you are having difficulties locating what you're interested in, Contact Us and I'll direct you!

I mention this because, as I said before, I believe in a team approach when it comes to a topic like plantar fasciitis, TMJ, and the structural issues and corrections of the body: Frank's coming from the one area he is a specialist in, and links out from the home page of his website to a fabulous website (www.mortonstoe.com), which is extremely educational and helpful, and also provides one product that addresses one aspect of these conditions, from the structure of the body and what to do to correct anomolies with an orthotic.

And when I go in person, as I have twice now, to their wellness pharmacy in Castle Rock, they only are focused on nutritional supplements' approach.

When I go to the holistic dentist he's only focused on the cranium and supplementation, he doesn't chain downward and look at the feet and my shoes and wear pattern.  It's therefore up to ME to 'connect the dots' and put the information together.  I'm perhaps better at that than some people, so I like to share what I see with YOUsers at Lumigrate. For what it's worth ..... maybe I'm not seeing things as you would, maybe it's not correct at all, but I offer it as a suggestion for YOU to consider from here.  Then take action, accordingly. 

That's also where I come in with Lumigrate and provide a complement of providers who write collaboratively on topics to provide the various opinions and perspectives all in one place on each topic we tackle together. And everyone who finds the information, by whatever means, which is maintained at $0 in order to help as many people as possible with education in a self-service manner.  People can get going and working independently. If YOU need and want individualized assistance with that, then I am available to assist with YOU becoming the center of a robust team wherever you live and based on what resources you have to work with (being time, energy, $ (and that includes insurance benefit details that factor in and vary so much anymore). I do require compensation for my efforts 1:1 and that's worked out individually.

Mortons Toe dot com has a very intriguing and simple, yet customizeable, system of foot orthotics for way under $100, and they serve people everywhere/remotely, so this is the type of thing that gets my attention to bring to people at Lumigrate! Frank Gresham has experience with this company.  I'm trying to find something similar that offers TMJ and sleep apnea jaw positioners with exceptional quality and validity, stabilitity, honesty, etc. .. Because if you have one, you'll likely have the other..... as this website teaches.

Frank works with people individually via video and photos and phone to see things related to their posture and positioning when standing, sitting, reclining, lying down, sleeping. He has a similar rate as I suggest as a starting point for compensating for my  time doing individual 'concierge' services: $45/half hour. Very reasonable! 

As a (former) OT who used to do positioning with people, I appreciate having someone as qualified as Frank to offer people as a professional resource to consult with on that. 

So I want to suggest him to people as a resource to check out at least via his website if they have generalized body pain that comes from structure/joints/bone alignment, plantar fasciitis, and all the way up to the other end of the body, headache, TMJ, etc.  

About my toe injury, and what I learned from it and a typical primary care visit, and why it is we ultimately need a robust team of advisors around us, for those who want to go on and read a bit more about my history and thoughts about health care and feet:

With that injury coinciding with my friend coming shortly thereafter, I had the advise/peer pressure of someone saying 'that is awfully swollen, you better go to the doctor.' I needed to get a new general, primary care doctor and simply hadn't yet. I decided to first call the practice where I used to be the OT contractor in the building -- at least I know their system. And so I had someone tending to my hematoma within hours and not saying anything about what they could see about my overall health based on my feet. There had been a look of 'oh my' after saying hello with nice eye contact from the door and then looking to my foot, dangling off the end of the exam table.  

We muttled through the numbing injection (I used all my meditation about pain capacity on that and it was all I could do to not scream OUWWWW the way we all have likely heard coming from exam rooms when we're at doctor's offices ... I remember an ENTs office in my 20s where the whole waiting room was blanchin at what we were hearing, the poor woman.) Then the draining of the bloody fluid, while discussing that she was going to prescribe an X-ray, which could be done right there in the building (one of the reasons I chose this group from all the others in town), unfortunately I'd have to run elsewhere as there's no longer a pharmacy in the building, there wasn't enough volume to warrant that. That's okay, the friendly pharmacist that had been there was happy to see me over at Sams, which was a 'coincidence' that we reconnected.  

I really like the continuity that comes from having providers who end up overall having a good grasp about you in their brains.  Yes, everything is supposed to be in the computers we document things, but how often is that not the case? It's impossible to write all the information down, so in the time available, only the absolute necessary things are to be written and the rest gets lost, unless you have the SAME brain in the game in the future.

So the primary care provider went on and bandaged the toe to reduce the risk of infection, discussing using antibiotics and my history of cellutis in my other foot a decade before with an ankle injury that got a simple bug bite on it, as it was summertime; I was feeling that feeling in my lungs with the cold I'd been successfully fighting and that always has meant bronchitis is going to get me. 

(Editing in later, I would learn of Mast Cells and Activation Disorder since 2011 when that occurred and since creating this topic .... which helped connect some dots as to why I had this 'crazy' outcome from a simple stubbed toe.  It was in the realm of complex regional pain disorder, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, and so on...... all of which I have looked into further and have now found one primary care doctor in my city which has had a patient with already diagnosed EDS, so my hopes are up again I may get a competent primary care provider again some day as this was NOT competence I paid $ for in 2011.  In the mean time, going to a cranial academy guru osteopath for many sessions in the years after that lead to many improvements for my overall health and I have not had the "need" for one since 2011 so .... I must be doing something right!). 

Knowing the 'downside' of stripping out the hard-won return of my gut to having a healthy or healthiER flora mix, I wanted antibiotics. And I helped her understand and learn about where I come from by talking about how I use expert natural wellness pharmacists to guide me in how to use antibiotics and probiotics at the same time, and then how to continue after the antibiotics end to restore the gut health as much and as rapidly as possible -- and foods / drinks (diet) and so on. 

I have a fairly good and-getting-better 'doctor inside of me', and finding providers who simply know what they know, allowing for a discussion, and giving of honest opinions and allowing me to make the choice and take that responsibility is how I operate; it's beyond my preference now and is my insistence I guess you'd say.  I liked this new physicians.  New to me, and new overall, she was young.  But open minded and most importantly, about fibromyalgia.  She didn't get that 'oh, no, not another one of YOU' look in her eyes. But she was clearly scared of what she had encountered with what presented at the end of my lower extremity.

I had a pleasant time getting the Xray done, the woman was very capable and had a good sense of humor and sent me home with some products to bandage the wound up so I wouldn't have to make TWO stops as the pharmacy might not have had what I needed. Nothing wrong structurally was what the radiology report said. Good, and it was ALL under $600! So much for going on spring or summer vacation, LOL, and that's the price of one month of insurance premium for someone high risk and 'uninsurable' with fibromyalgia. So I've broken even cost-wise for the month.  That's good. 

(Editing in, it turned out that the ostoeopath would find the toe to be out of joint (and gently re-aligned it) the next month or so, my left knee was hurting when I was getting back to short hikes or walks for exercise and recreation beyond walking for necessary functional tasks.  Which was due to the right grand toe not bending right -- this is important to note with the Morton's Toe ... connected to the leg and to the hip and the whole body bones ..... as I said at the top of this topic.) 

So Humpty Dumpty Mardy was put back together again, for under $1,000. But nobody saying 'look at your toes, they're telling a story about what's going on in your body.'  And so I hope my story has helped YOU start to look at your toes and the information at Lumigrate and start peeling the onion a bit more about YOUR body and what's going on and why, and find things you can do about it to have the outcome of wellness/illness you wish to experience.  

Again, we have people to support you with that, and that starts with me being like a desk clerk or concierge.  If you need something simple, I help people find links regularly, no charge, just part of your being a valued guest at Lumigrate. For those with more complex questions and histories, I offer inexpensive strategy session which can be progressed as time goes on and you move forward with what you are doing for your wellness.