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Oh, my word! One of the worst physical feelings when living with Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) is cold feet in the winter months. If you haven’t experienced it, most likely you will. It seems to be almost impossible to avoid. This followed by the challenges of getting my feet warm again.
When I was younger, probably in my twenties, there weren’t many resources to help CMT patients. You learned what you did by thinking about ways to help yourself or by asking others their opinions. Sometimes a doctor or physical therapist will have ideas. I had family members whom I could ask questions.
First, you have to realize that cold feet are not the typical cold feet that other people have. Since the nerve endings in our extremities, hence legs and feet, are not working as they should, we experience neuropathy which allows our feet to get cold.
For me, learning to keep my feet warm, and stay warm, was quite a bit of trial and error. My favorite trick was double socks. In the mornings when my feet were still warm, I would put on two pairs of my favorite comfortable tube socks. Simple enough, right?
Wrong.
When you put on the first pair of socks, be sure to align the far point of the sock with your big toe. With a new pair of socks, especially tube or athletic, you may not notice where the big toe should go. With these, you use your best judgment and adjust accordingly. When you use this pair next time, you’ll know. Next, pull the socks up toward your knee. Do the same with the other foot. Before you put on the second pair of socks, stand up. Take a minute to walk around making sure that your feet are absolutely comfortable in the socks. Also, make sure that there are no wrinkles. Once you are comfortable in the first pair of socks, put on the second pair following the same procedure.
Why do all of that for putting on your socks? You will thank me for this. If you do not do that, it’s very possible that the socks will either not be aligned properly or have wrinkles or both. At first, I didn’t do this routine, I just put my socks on and went out the door.
Within a short period of time, I was surprised to find myself having horrible pain in my feet. However, since I was out, there wasn’t much I could about it until I got home. When I got home, I found the socks to be wrinkled and turned.
The next day I paid serious attention to the manner in which I put on my socks. The pain wasn’t happening again if I could help it.
The second pair of socks can be another pair of tube socks, dress socks, or outdoor socks which keep feet warmer in the cold weather. When the sock industry began making socks for every season, reason, or whatever that could possibly be, I found pairs that kept my feet warm without a second pair. I’ll share those in another post.
