[Maria]

Hello there ADRseeker,
I saw a podiatrist back in 2004 for my feet of course who told me that I needed to wear my orthotics and I said I can't they give me sciatica which I didn't normally have rather "just low back pain and neuropathies" (back then).

Well he said I was FOS and he didn't believe me and that he never had another patient tell him the orthotics caused low back pain. He had checked my rather newly made orthotics and thought they were fine (made by other podiatrist so not trying to bilk me out of any $).

So I thought ..whatta a** and didn't wear the orthotics. My back did get better after many years (I didn't realize L5S1 was autofusing) and I was able to walk more and more .. for hours even.

Made the mistake of not wearing good supportive shoes or inserts and I am very flat footed. Was wearing TEVAs for long long walks. Then a few days wore some terrible sandals that while very pretty had no support and was on my feet all day shopping or some stupid thing. Ignored horrible pain in feet.

Ended up with bilateral posterior tibial tendonitis bilaterally. Saw a podiatrist and an Ortho for feet. Started wearing SOLE inserts with my tennis shoes and thankfully that has helped much.

What I also noticed was how much it helped my back as well. If I walk with non supportive shoes any distance will end up w/backache but with tennies and supportive inserts it's a world of diff and don't really have any back pain to speak of unless have tweaked my low back doing something stupid or screwed it up some other way.

Glad to hear your friend got relief w/sketchers and you're doing better w/the clones. I've heard that from someone else too re sketchers. Amazing!

So the informercials that go on about how good support for the feet really do make sense. RE the atlas adjustment.. I'll check out who does that in my area just in case I need some tweakin'. For right now I'm pretty good re spine stuff (even my neck which was so screwed up these last few 7 years or so after near 30 years of low back hell).

I have to add that every podiatrist I've seen has said to try orthotics and good footwear before having anymore spine surgery at least in my case. In fact many of the non spine physicians I've seen think that once you have spine surgery you're in for more and more or long haul w/drugs (true that for me thus far). They aren't saying this from lack of experience rather because there's a large number of patients that they see regularly with failed spine surgery (they probably don't see much of the ones who've had successful surgeries as those people are out living life vs. hanging out in doctor's offices unless other condition not related to spine).