Hello Spiderwoman...it's very nice to meet you...
I noticed that you have problems with you hands/arms and feet out of nowhere....I understand. Do you have a diagnosis? If so, would you mind sharing it with me. We still haven't found out exactly what mine is. Of course, the hand dr has dx and the foot dr has dx, but we all know they are related and yet the dx don't match.....I'm sure you understand.
I did want to recommend something for your feet (if you don't mind). My feet were so bad that I honestly wanted to give up for a while....almost a year. I'll put my "signature" on the bottom and it will explain about the feet dx. Anyway, they make some very good braces that you wear at night that help tremendously with the foot pain. I wore them around the clock (yes, I know that means I had to stay home in the recliner or in the bed and just go from there to the bathroom for a long time, but the pain was too great to go anywhere else). They ordered these braces through my podiatrist and they are for plantar issues and work sooooo well. The daytime ones they made (Richey Braces) were not worth my time or energy, but you may want to give them a chance too if you find your insurance will pay for them. I also have molded inserts (very hard style) from the podiatrist that I use in most shoes now. For a very long time I could not wear anything but the tennis shoes with the Ritchey braces in them. They can also order the shoes and I recommend doing that because I couldn't find any at all in the regular store that fit with them. They ordered diabetic shoes and I actually like the shoes very much because they let the feet breath.
Anyway, it took almost a year before I saw GREAT changes, but the changes in my feet after wearing the night braces was almost instant....say a week made a great difference....that's instant for me in the pain world. I found the night braces to make so much difference in the pain levels!! You can order the night splints off line and it is cheaper if you don't have insurance, but I tried ordering several pair off of the internet and they all hurt to sleep in....so that will have to be your decision.
Now.....I can wear "normal" shoes, as long as they have a heal that is at least an inch. Of course I have to take my cane to keep from falling with my back, but I guess I can trade off to keep the foot pain away. I don't even wear my braces at night anymore. Turns out it takes about a year to heal from a good bout of plantar issues and all of the other things I have. I still have foot pain so I'm not giving you the be all end all of solutions, but it is nowhere near as bad as the pain from before. That was HORRIBLE and made it so painful that you simply could not stand to get up after resting the feet for any lenght of time.
I wish you all the best and hope you find the answers for your hands and your feet. I had the surgery on my hands and will save that for another day....still have the problems..
Have a great week my new HW friend.
Retiredmom
**watch out....I don't know what is going on, but my computer changes the correct name of plantar fa sh it is to plantar facrapis** I can't make it go away and it keeps changing the words. Sorry for the insanity 