Long time no blog!

I felt compelled to write a new blog entry as I have had a small revelation in my life with respect to shoes. Now you might be thinking 'Shoes? what is so special that it can be classed as a revelation?'. Well over 10 years ago I was diagnosed with Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease (generally known as CMT). This is a degenerative nerve disorder that damages the peripheral nerves, which can lead to problems with feet / legs, hands, and in some sever cases breathing.

Now I am lucky, I have a relatively mild case of CMT, where my hands are generally unaffected (save for a little loss in sensation), it is my legs and feet that don't fare quite as well. I have considerable loss of sensation in both feet (from the mid foot forwards I can't feel too much), and loss of muscle in the lower legs. This makes walking somewhat more challenging and tiring, with increased possibility of tripping up (balance is not something I take for granted!). It also means that my feet are not normal shaped, they are rather wide due to muscle wastage. This has meant that buying shoes is a challenge, most shoes are narrow and I simply can't wear them. To top it all off my right foot is a full size smaller than my left, which compounds the issue as the widest part of my right foot is in the narrowest part of a shoe - due to needing to buy the larger size for my left. Shoes shopping has never been fun!

That all changed when I discovered minimalist shoes from Xero Shoes!

For those not familiar with minimalist shoes, there are generally two core elements of their design:

1. They are designed with the natural shape of the foot in mind - who knew that most modern shoes (for fashion purposes) are actually bad for your feet - they are too narrow, provide support where it is not really needed, and all feature an incline where the heal is higher than the ball of the foot (which is certainly not natural). Minimalist shoes by default feature a much wider 'toe box' as it is known to allow your toes to splay as they naturally would, and they feature 'zero drop' where there is no difference in height between the heal and the ball of the foot, helping with balance.
2. They have a very thin sole (we are usually talking around 5mm) compared to the ginormous soles we are used to, especially on trainers. They do this to enable you to feel the ground so much more, allowing your foot to function as it was intended.

So, why are minimalist shoes so good for me? Well of course the obvious benefit is the wider natural fit for my right foot in particular, a shoe that is a last comfortable to wear, and doesn't create corns between my toes - they are literally the comfiest shoes I have ever worn! Secondly, and this is where I feel the major benefit for CMT sufferers comes in, is that unlike normal shoes, which separate your foot from the ground, providing very little feedback, and which also provide too much support, they do the exact opposite.

With CMT apart from the lack of sensation, the loss of muscle in the feet / legs is the debilitating factor, so with the old adage of 'use it or lose it', shoes that do too much work on our behalf only make our feet and legs weaker. I have read it likened to wearing a plaster cast. For those who have worn one you will know that having worn a plaster cast for a number of weeks, where it provides support to the broken limb, when it is removed you find that the limb has lost muscle due to lack of use, and that is exactly the same thing that 'normal' shoes do by providing so much support. With minimalist shoes providing a little padding, but a lot less support, your feet, and the muscles that make them work, function as intended.

So for those with CMT, they help maintain, or possibly build lost muscle in the feet and legs helping balance and walking in general, and with much thinner soles that help recreate that loss of feedback from lost sensation when walking. A win-win as far as I am concerned.

The only caveat I would add is that you cannot simply switch to wearing minimalist shoes overnight, your feet and legs need to be retrained and build muscle, so much like wearing in a new pair of stiff normal shoes, wear them around the house a little at first and build up.

The minimalist shoe company that I have found most effective and suitable for me is: Xero Shoes there reasons for creating the company and their ethos really resonatd with me.

They even have guide on how to walk more effectively and comfortably in minimalist shoes, and don't worry it doesn't mean walking strangely like something in a Monty Python Sketch. In fact it is a much more natural way of walking that I believe is safer and less accident prone for suffers of CMT.

But don't take my word for it, do a little research yourselves and let me know how you get on.

Lewis

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