Big Toe Woes

OK.   It is 2"30 AM on a Saturday night.   I woke up at 10Am yesterday, and only had one nap - 45 minutes.   I have been crazy bust all day, including 2 shopping trips.  

How come I am not sleepy!   I missed Church last week, I really want to go today, but time is getting short.   I didn't go last week because I was awake until 7 AM

I am getting infections in my toenails again.   I have figured out why they keep happening, so I wanted to record it in case I forgot this, or if someone else in my family has the same problem for the same reason.

The reason I am getting infections in my big toes is because I am going barefoot.   I used to never go barefoot, until I started to lose feeling in the bottoms of my feet due to neuropathy, and probably also diabetes.  Going barefoot used to really hurt, so much so that I rarely took a step without some kind of foot covering.

When I sit down and get really involved in something, like perhaps an exciting movie or computer game, I sit up, with my back arched.  I unconsciously lift the heel of one of my feet off the floor.   I switch between them during the session, but usually it is the right foot.   When I do that, I press the toes of my feet into the floor hard.   It is OK on the rest of the toes because the toenails are short.   But the toesnails on the big toes are really long.   So when I crimp the toe, bending it tightly, the beginning of the toenail is forced deeper into my flesh.   since my toes are totally numb now, I can't feel the bacl part of the toenail slicing into the tissue.  I usually turn the heel outward a bit, so this also puts pressure on the inside edge of the toenail.   This is why the infection is always in the same place.  On the rght foot, it is the rear left corner of the big toenail.

I have been fighting it all week, using lots of neosporin and Hydrogen Peroxide.   But I have only managed to keep it from getting worse.   The solution is to wear a shoe that has a stiff sole and foot casing so that I cannot bend my toes much.   Fortunately, I have just the thing.   When I was going to the gym regularly (several millenia ago), I bought some shoes to give me traction when I walked in the swimming pool.  They are shooes that cooks wear.  They look like Dutch wooden shoes.   They are made of some kind of firm plastic - feels like rubber.    I will wear them as house shoes from now on.

Please, Please let me sleep soon