It hurts to walk.
I guess you could classify me as a walker. We have a treadmill and I’m not afraid to use it …
often.
But there’s a price one is forced to pay when you’re a walker – it’s a terrible punishment on your feet. I have calluses where calluses probably shouldn’t be. I have corns from wearing too tight shoes. And I get so many blisters (because I go through walking shoes pretty quickly) that they don’t even bother me that much anymore.
In short? My feet are BUTT ugly. Seriously. Long, crooked toes, bunions, corns and well, they’re just nasty. It used to really bother me to wear sandals/flip flops – actually, I never used to wear sandals and flip flops …
But when you get older and it’s more about comfort than style, you don’t give a monkey’s banana what people think.
So, what I’m trying to say is, when you’re a walker (and I’m sure it’s the same way, perhaps even worse, for runners), you deal with the ugly feet. It’s a necessary evil to do what you love to do and stay in shape.
But now … something has happened and I was forced to limp around for several days.
And the kicker is? I don’t KNOW what happened. All I know is I’ve bruised my big toe – big time.
The nail is a pretty lavender color. Not black and not black enough to worry me. I pinched my pinky in a folding chair before and bruised it so bad that the nail turned black and fell off. So I know what that looks like.
No, this nail is a, well, pretty lavender color. It doesn’t look angry, it looks irritated. Like someone just insulted you and your cheeks turn a light purple because you’re upset, but not upset enough to blow your lid.
Anyway, enough with the analogies. It hurts. It hurts like a mother focker. The only thing I can come up with is that I wore some different chunky shoes (Sketchers, I believe) and ever since then, my toe has hurt. And walking? Only makes it worse though my sneakers aren’t rubbing against it … much.
It hurt so badly that I couldn’t walk on it for several days – well, exercise walk, not the normal walk around life thing.
It’s the weirdest thing. I suppose I’ll wait and see what happens and endure the discomfort. Hopefully, it’ll heal quickly.
Have any of you ever bruised your toes? If so, how did you do it and how long did it take to heal?
Write From Karen 
When I was in the hospital after having baby #3, I hurt my toe. I had a c-section so I was in pain and couldn’t move around very well. For some reason, I was alone. The baby was crying and I wanted to sit in the rocking chair to rock him. There was a footrest in the way so I tried to move it. That sucker was heavy and I couldn’t lean over to grab it. I managed to lift one corner with my foot As I moved it, it slipped and landed on my big toe. It hurt worse than anything. I was on massive painkillers, but they did nothing for my toe. It wasn’t until the next day that I was even able to reach my foot to take off my sock to see how bad the toe was. The whole toe was purple, not just the nail. It took about 6 months for it to grow out and heal completely. Not fun, especially for someone who wears sandals as much as possible!
Dear God that happened to me over my vacation in DC this year. My toes were normal when I left for vacation and my big toe was lavender when I came back. I wore a different but comfortable pair of tennis shoes than the ones I regularly wear. These shoes just happen to have a harder degree of leather on them than my normal ones. The normal ones looked gross and since it was vacation, I thought I’d would at least attempt to have decent footwear. I thought I had stubbed the darn thing, but I certainly don’t remember doing it. My dr. checked it out when I got home and said it was just a bruise and that it would grow out over time. Do you have any idea how long it takes a toenail to growout?!? FOREVER. It has progressed from the middle of the nail to the top of the nail and that has been since August. I’m hoping by spring I’ll have a normal looking toe again so that I can wear my beloved sandals. I truly feel your pain.
omg, I just got grossed out reading that.
Ouch, Paul!
Oh man, here we go….
It was Spring Semester 2000, and I was an exchange student at UNC-Chapel Hill. I was meant to be studying for my Constitutional Law exam, but all my friends were playing in the sunshine (we were all undergrads, but because law is a grad school subject in the US, I was doing grad level work – 20 years old and in grad school, so proud…)
Anyway, they were all playing soccer on the volleyball court, and I joined them. I spotted an empty plastic bottle of coke lying in a clump of grass. I ran up to it, and swung my right foot at it to kick it away.
CRACK.
The bottle was not “lying in a clump of grass”. It was sitting in an iron tube that was cunningly hidden by the clump of grass. My toe impacted into it, and for the next four weeks I hobbled around campus. My toe went all kinds of wonderful shades of purple and red, and it makes a clicking noise.
It grosses out my family when I make it click now…