“Movement is a medicine for creating change in a person’s physical, emotional and mental states.” Carol Welch
I bet many of you who live with a chronic illness have encountered many people in your journey who think they have the answer to all your problems. I know throughout my life living with multiple sclerosis I have met many individuals who feel they know the mystery that will make my life easier. I have been told my disease was caused by vaccines, would be healed by vitamins and more exercise and told that I just needed to change my mindset and it would go away. Obviously, these things are not helpful and just infuriate me when I hear them. Apparently some dude at they dog park knows more about the disease I have lived with for the past 26 years than I do.
However, I also live by the mandate to try everything you come across because you never know what may be helpful to you along the way. I have spent a small fortune over the years looking for aids that may help me walk better, have improved balance, or help my state of mind. Some of them have proved to be useless for me, some have been helpful at certain times in my life but are not anymore, and some have proved invaluable and have become part of my daily routine. I am going to highlight my newest find in this category that have truly changed my life and functioning. These are Cadense shoes.
I learned of them from a woman I follow on line who also has MS. Her name is Ardra Shephard and her site is called Tripping on Air if you want to check it out. https://trippingonair.com/ She had received a pair to try. They had really helped her and she said she wasn’t even using her brace with them anymore. I wear the same brace and I always hate wearing it. I looked into them but they were only available in the USA and you couldn’t try them on anywhere to see how they would work. I just let it go for awhile because I wasn’t willing to invest the money on something I could not try first.
Then I decided to email the company. They let me know that they were just in the process of setting up a distribution center in Canada. I would be able to pay in Canadian funds and have 30 days to return them for free if i didn’t like them. I was super happy to try them. I preordered them last fall and as soon as our lengthy postal strike ended, I received my shoes. I received an email everyday for close to a week showing me how to put them on, how to stand and then how to walk in them. I was nervous when they first came because of the mechanism that allows them to work. There are two nylon “pucks” on the bottom of the runners that allow your foot to slide due to the zero friction nature of them when not bearing weight. That to me sounded risky. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that as soon as I put them on, I could walk around the house easily. They not only have the sliding portion, but a high friction portion for when you are weight bearing. I have never slipped or tripped when wearing them since the day I received them.
The main reason I wanted the shoes was because I deal with drop foot. Foot drop is a challenging condition that affects the ability to lift the front part of the foot, often resulting in a dragging gait that can be both frustrating and risky. This is often a side effect of MS, Parkinson’s or post stroke. I have spent a lot of time on the ground after tripping on things or even just stumbling because my foot didn’t move and the rest of my body did. I have recently had Botox injections to try to work with it and lessen the spasms. The spasms have been giving me years of pain in my hip and knee due to my wonky gait. The doctor at the rehab hospital told me he wanted to do surgery to cut a muscle in my leg to hopefully help me walk better. I told him I wanted to wait until I received my Cadense shoes to see if they would help first. I am pretty sure he thought I was nuts thinking shoes would fix my problems.
I was so proud to walk into the Glenrose Rehab Hospital with my new shoes to prove them wrong. The doctor took video of me walking without the shoes and with them. He then called in about ten other doctors and nurses from the unit. He told me I was right. He was taking my name off the list for surgery. He felt these shoes would indeed change my mobility for the better. I wear them most days now. I am annoyed if I wear something that does not “go” with my runners, which I now have a black, beige and blue pair. I would also like to add that the customer service with the company is amazing! They email back really promptly about questions and were kind enough to make me an ambassador for their shoe line as one of the first people to have a pair in Canada. Almost every time I go out, I find someone to talk to about the shoes that I truly believe have changed my relationship with walking. They are a bit pricey at $279 but so are most good runners and these are the best. They are so comfortable, have a wide foot bed to help with neuropathy and come in a wide and regular width. I just order my regular size and they fit perfectly. An added bonus is that after wearing them for only a few weeks (I promise) the pain in my hip and knee are almost non-existent. I have lived with that pain for years but I think that not swinging my leg anymore to avoid tripping has sorted out my anatomy so that it does not give me immense pain anymore.
They are so worth the investment. I am working on talking to MS Canada to see if they will include them in a grant they provide for people living with MS. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me and I would strongly recommend giving these shoes a go if they sound like they might help you. These Cadense shoes get a 5 star rating from me. I am attaching a link to their site and they have a ton of videos on it that shoe you the science behind how they work as they can do a much better job than I can. You will also get a $10 discount on your first pair. https://cadense.com/en-ca/pages/how-it-works?msclkid=297a7eb4c9971c14b69a1691cb5e3773&utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=ca%20-%20search%20-%20brand%20-%20reach&utm_term=cadence%20sneakers&utm_content=cadense
Happy Walking,
Christine
anundefinedlife.com 