Heel pain solutions found: support socks, heel cups and more

Problem Painful Heel
I had really bad heel pain. Could not walk. Worse in the morning. Worse on the right heel than the left.

Answers
I had to give up running up and down stairs and take the lifts at stations and plot my journeys to avoid long interchanges at stations. Is that the problem or the answer? It was only temporary relief.

Medical Plantar Fasciitis?
I searched on line to find out what was wrong. I was worried it might be diabetes and I could end up losing my foot or leg. I was relieved when it seemed that my problem was plantar fasciitis. I had a label but neither cause, prevention nor cure.

I looked online.

NEW SHOES?
A lady on a station in Singapore suggested I needed new shoes. I looked at my sandals which I wore every day. Lovely Josef Seibel sandals. Two-colour sandals which co-ordinated with my clothes and did not look too sporty as if I were hill-walking on rugged terrain, but suitable, elegant enough for indoor group meetings.

Worn Heels
Underneath they were wearing on the heel on one side. In the old days you wore leather shoes and when they wore down you took them to the menders and chose heels and had them re-heeled.

Unfortunately, today's synthetic moulded shoes cannot be fixed. When will somebody make sandals and both inexpensive and inexpensive shoes which can be repaired? I suggest shoes which can be taken apart easily to that one part can be changed, or two pairs can be combined to make one new pair.

Shoe Discounts
Another solution would be a buy two get one free offer, so that your favourite colour and design will continue to be in your cupboard so you can ditch the oldest and still have one pair which looks smart and supports your feet. Hotter sometimes does seasonal offers on buy two or three pairs of shoes and get a reduction.

Second-hand Footwear
I tend to buy second-hand sandals and shoes because you can never be sure whether shoes bought by mail will fit so I don't want to spend a lot of money. Even paying return postage and wrapping up items and taking them to the post office is a nuisance and wastes time.

I have been looking very carefully at the soles of second-hand shoes. If you only want to wear them for an evening talk when you are sitting down except for the ten-minute interval, the tops matter more than the underside.

However, I often need shoes or sandals you can wear all day, with lots of walking to the station, at station interchanges, 500 metres or ten minutes walk from the station to your destination. You might be walking around an exhibition or art gallery or conference or show.  Then you need shoes or sandals with support to stop getting pain.

Observing Others' Shoes And Stepping
You don't want to be walking lopsided in down-at-heel shoes. I look at people ahead of me on the escalator.

Flat Shoes and Flip-flops
On the marble floors in shopping malls, I hear people behind, alongside. I look at their bare feet in flip-flops, making a noise. I see old people shuffling along in flip-flops. (In Australia and New Zealand called thongs.) You can hear the noise of their shoes dragging along the ground.

I come out of a shower and wear completely flat towelling slippers or synthetic toe-post shoes.
If I wear flip-flops around the house, it's good for letting feet breathe. However, I notice that I don't lift my feet. When I change into sandals and set off down the street, and up and down steps, on uneven pavements, I keep tripping. Why? Because the front of one of my sandals has hit something and I am not stepping high enough over slight obstructions from uneven paving stones.

Heel Supports
I looked in a pharmacy or drug store in Singapore in the food section and found heel supports or liners to put inside shoes. They cost a lot of money, about the equivalent of £20. They would not suit sandals. They would slip out.

Amazon Products
However, today, weeks later, I found what looks like the solution. I had started searching for snadals. Then I clicked on kitchen clogs, protective shoes for chefs and ktichen workers. Underneath popped up protective shoes, liners, support, suport for the arch of your foot, items for people on their feet all day and more.

I wanted not support for arches, but padded socks. They fit around the ankle so they should not slip off when wearing sandals.

You can buy heel cups for closed shoes, and what look like socks with open toes, or socks with the fronts cut off. Both Amazon and Ebay had them.

Reviews Of Heel Cups and Liners
I looked on Amazon for the reviews. What could go wrong? If your feet are large or your ankles are wide the sock style liners in one size fits all might be too tight. Other reviewers said the items disintegrated in use - the gels rubbed off under pressure from shoes and straps, or went sticky.

Other reviewers, writing both when they had just received the item and after wearing, said the results were ok or wonderful.

Prices
Prices ranged from about £1 from China with free postage, or up to ten pounds or twenty or even thirty.

Should you go for the dearer ones on the grounds that you get what you pay for? Or go for the cheaper ones on the grounds that

a) If they don't work not a great financial loss
b) If you are cured in a day or two, they don't have to last forever.

NHS
One advertiser says their socks or inserts are approved by the NHS (National Health Service in the UK). Does that mean I can get them free?

Happy
Anyway, I am so happy to have found the sock-type solution, which can be worn inside a sandal. An alternative would be to order and wear the flat shoe liner or 'cup' support which might slip out, but secure them inside a pair of your own socks.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.

Even Numbers In The West ; My Rant Against 3 Samosas Between 4 People and 1 chocolate between 2

Problem
Can you count to two, and four? Yes. So can most people. The British, and most westerners, like even numbers. In England you buy a dozen roses. Not a baker's dozen, thirteen which guarded against the risk of being hanged for short changing a customer by giving him food under weight. Let's look on the bright side. A dozen roses. If you can't afford a dozen, half a dozen roses.

The British used to have a dinner service of 12 dinner plates. Thirteen was unlucky because it reminds you of the last supper. 13 had supper. Only twelve survived the night.

Supermarkets sell eggs in boxes of six. Every now and then a manufactuere tries to reduce the number to 5. Howls of outrage.

Four would be okay. You can sell a set of four cups and saucers. For two couples. Or two cups. For one couple. Or a single person and a date or a guest, a friend.

But you can never sell five cups nor three. One person would be left out of the conversation. Five cups? Even in a charity shop, you must reduce the price of a set of five cups with six saucers. The British buyer thinks: I have been short changed. There should be six, an even number.

A supermarket can sell a customer: 'Buy two, get one free.' But you can't sell three. It looks like the retailer bought sets of four from the wholesaler and is cheating the customer.

Restaurant Tables For Two and Four
Restaurants have tables for two and tables for four. You can't sit three people at a table for four. That looks as if you are cheating the restaurant of a fourth setting.

Waiters don't like it. The restaurant manager loses the sale of a meal. The waiter has a reduced tip.

Even in an empty restaurant. An imaginary group of four might materialised out of the cloud, in an empty restaurant, and want to choose that table. That table is reserved.

You might try to move to a table for two. As the waiter said, it is small. You will cope. Then you try to move a chair from a table for four, to convert a table for two into a table for three.

Watch what happens. The waiter says, "You can't do that!"

"Why not?"

"My staff can't get past. We might have an accident. It's a table for two. It's two small for three."

They Are Odd, In the East
In the East, they like odd numbers.

Japanese Tea Sets
When I was teaching English conversation to a Japanese lady she served tea, two cups from a set of five. The Japanese have tea sets with five cups. "In England we have six tea cups," I told her.
"Why do you have five," I asked her. "

"Ah, so. Four guests. Plus hostess to serve them. Five."

She thought:
"Why do you have six?"

A generation or two ago, families would serve 12 people. Now we have smaller families, and sets of six.

Three Samosas
The menu of the new Sakonis vegetarian Indian restaurant in Hatch End, North London, offered vegetarian samosas (3).

Samosas are trangular pastry cases with various fillings.

Ordering Four
I supposed we could have ordered two, portions, making six, one per person and two spares.
My husband refused. He was the man in charge of ordering and he wanted several different dishes. "I'm not going to order two plates of the same dish. Besides, it's two much food. That would be wasteful."

When ordering, we asked if they could make four. Our server went to the kitchen to ask if the cook could make that 4 pieces.

Yes.

However, we got three. We were served three samosas between four people.

Another 'small plate' which we had potato bajis, balls like dumplings, as a starter was also three pieces.

Divisions
The division of the samosas created divisions amongst the customers.
We divided the first two Samosas into half,, one half for each per person.

The potato bajis, balls like dumplings, are also served as three pieces. We often eat as a threesome. but in a foursome this is odd.

The restaurant could reduce the portion to two and give you three if they see three people, forcing you to order two plates for four people. I hope they don't. Maybe we should just keep quiet!

This is not the first time I have found a discrepancy. After a meal in a restaurant, when they present chocolates of bisucits with the coffeee or the bill, I worry, how many chocolates will you get?

Chocolates
I've had this problem before with chocolates, chocolates at restaurants, and chocolates in hotels.

Chocolates in Hotels
Two or three times I've been in hotels which offer a turn down service. They don't seem to co-ordinate with the desk to find out that two people are sharing a room. So we get one bathrobe between two. We get one pair of slipers between two. Plus one bath towel between two.

Finally, one chocolate between two. Since we both like chocolate, this could be a problem.

Supposing the chocolate is on one side of the bed, and the person on that side eats it, thinking that there must be one the other side, or that the other person has already eaten theirs.

I remember, one one occasion, after a tiring day, the missing chocolate was 'the last straw'. I phoned down to housekeeping. I asked, "Is it possible to have another chocolate?"
A voice replied, "Another chocolate?"

"Yes," I replied, trying to sound light hearted. "Two of us had one chocolate. If either of us eats it, the other person will commit murder. Can you send up a second chocolate? It will save an aful lot of trouble for us, and you."

"You want another chocolate?"

"Yes. Please."

"Anything else, Madam?"

"Yes, another bathrobe. We have one between two. And another bath towel. And another pair of towelling slippers. I'm fed up with hopping about wearing one."

"A chocolate. A Bathrobe. A bath towel. And a pair of towelling slippers?"

"Yes, please, that would be delightful."

PS Flower Numbers In Russia and Romania
In Russia, Romania and Slavic countries you send even numbers of flowers to a funeral. You send odd numbers for a bride or a gift for living people.

Flower Numbers In Singapore
The same applies in Singapore where a bride carries seven flowers. (However in Singapore gifts of money are given in multiple numbers of lucky eight. The number four is unlucky because it sounds like the word for death. House numbers and motorbike numbers with eight are favoured.)

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. I have many posts on language and destinations in Romania and Singapore. Please share links to your favourite posts.