If it walks like a duck...

[st_aurafina]

My personal trainer noticed I walk on the sides of my feet, so she spoke to my physio, and my physio looked at my ankles and sent me to a podiatrist, and the podiatrist said "!"

I am so pronated, man. In bare feet, my ankle bones nearly touch the ground when I walk. I have been fitted for orthotics - fun with water activated chemical socks! - which will hopefully roll my feet back and give me some arch support. And from there, hopefully, there will be less hip and back pain when I walk, I will be more comfortable walking, and my knees will be a little bit healthier. Every little bit counts.

[redacted: big whiny paragraph on how this should have been detected when I was a tiny kid who walked like a duck]

Finished the Hunger Games trilogy! It was so good! And yeah, I see how the third book was problematic, but maybe some of that was offset by inhaling all three books in a week, because I am so in love with this world. This was some good world building, and some seriously smart plotting. I'm not going to be able to see the movie while it's in cinemas - I've heard it's very hand-held, and that's no good for lilacsigil, even if I could convince her to go to see something dystopian. But I really want to see it! I heard that Cinna is awesome - he was pretty damn awesome in the books.

And I've jumped from there to the Montmaray books. You know that feeling when you click with the voice of a book within a few pages? I have totally got that going on now. Sophie is lovely so far.

Hey, I might do a meme. What meme should I do? The mini fanmix one where you give me a character and I give you some songs? The timestamp one where you pick one of my fics and give me a time and I tell you what happened after or before or whatever? Another one I can't think of right now?

I can't believe my family had a discussion over the dinner table about the pronunciation of 'meme' on Easter Sunday. I very much felt as though the streams were crossing. I blame Facebook. (My little sister says "meh-meh"!)

Comments

[avendya]

Wait. You can reduce joint pain by correcting for fucked up arches? oh my god why didn't I realize that before.

(I walk with my toes pointed significantly inward, I have previously horrified a physical therapist with my fucked up arches, but it did not occur to me that now that I have arthritis, this might impact my life slightly more.)

[st_aurafina]

Apparently you can! She says it won't be a magical cure - I laughed, because what is? - but it will help with ankle/hip/knee/lower back pain. All the weight-bearing joints should be a bit better off if I'm walking correctly.

You walk like a pigeon! I walk like a duck. Together we walk like a human! (Probably not, actually.)

[lonelywalker]

fun with water activated chemical socks!
That sounds appropriately sci-fi!

[st_aurafina]

It was very weird and very cool! She unrolled these sock things that looked disturbingly like beef jerky, dipped them in water and moulded them onto my feet. Then they got all hot, and turned rigid, and she slipped them off again in the shape of my feet.

[lonelywalker]

I am becoming more and more convinced that the Australian medical system is being run by SHIELD.

[senmut]

[redacted: big whiny paragraph on how this should have been detected when I was a tiny kid who walked like a duck]

So hear you there.

Like how a private passed an entry exam without the leg length difference being noted, leading to massive skeletal issues very quickly.

[st_aurafina]

Seriously. Someone should have noticed you had leg length differences in your early teens, let alone in a professional medical exam. Someone should have noticed I walked on the sides of my feet when, you know, I started walking. (My mum said "But I had your feet measured every year by the man in the shoe shop!")

We missed out on a load of early intervention. It makes me really mad that we have to find these things out on our own, in our forties. (Or approaching them, in your case.)

This is why I feel weird about asking for an Aspergers/ASD diagnosis - I'm basically fine, I got through college and into a good job, but only because I've spent all that time beating up on myself. I would have done better with a bit of help, instead of a personal mantra of "You're just lazy, you're just clumsy, you're just not concentrating, you're just a bit thick."

ETA: I think I un-redacted my rant on you, sorry!

[nomnivore]

Ouch. At least they've finally identified it?

[st_aurafina]

That's a good thing, anyway.

[inkstone]

The handheld camera aspect of the movie adaptation is strongest in the first 20-30 minutes. If you can make it through that, it vastly improves during the rest of the movie.

[lilacsigil]

Sadly, my limit for hand-held camera is about 15 seconds of not-too-extreme motion, so 30 minutes isn't going to happen!

[gehayi]

Until the battle with Katniss and Clove. There was so much shaky-cam during that part that I had to close my eyes. The flickering lights and colors? Not good for a person with epilepsy, seriously.

I will admit that the shaky-cam aspect improves over the course of the movie, but I really do think that the cinematographer could have communicated Katniss's nervousness and confusion in a way that would not induce motion sickness or seizures.

[st_aurafina]

I generally think every cinematographer can communicate what they need to without inducing motion sickness or seizures. Or at least, I wish they would try.

What really gets my goat is when they use shaky cam for a conversation - like, two people standing still, talking to each other. Why? What's the point of that? *fumes*

[lilacsigil]

I have watched movies at home on TV with my back turned for significant portions, and there's so many TV shows where they seem to decide that either a) things are exciting, shake the camera or b) things are boring, shake the camera.

Fortunately for me, st_aurafina is a good narrator!

[st_aurafina]

Remember this? "And now? Now he's standing in the corner. HE'S STANDING IN THE CORNER OMG!"

Good times.

[thistleburr]

I liked the look and costuming of Cinna in the movie, but I feel like it didn't really capture the depth of Cinna and Katniss' relationship.

[st_aurafina]

Oh, really? From the way people were talking, I was expecting to see more of their relationship. Oh, well, I'm sure fandom will provide - I haven't even started plumbing the archive yet. And I hear there's a kink meme somewhere, too.

[thistleburr]

I felt like a lot of the relationship dynamics in general were very different in the film. For example, people I've talked to who had seen the movie before reading the books weren't even aware that Katniss was acting during the first HGs to play up her attraction to Peeta.

[st_aurafina]

I'm pretty interested in seeing how the POV shift works - I've read a couple of reviews that said moving out of Katniss' head means there's more room for us to see the worldbuilding, which is good. (I like her POV in the books, but I can see how it would be hard to translate it to the screen.)

[clare_dragonfly]

Yay, orthotics! I have special orthotics (they're a weird kind, focused on helping the spine and joints rather than the feet specifically) and they help so much. I hope yours help a lot too.

Also yay, Hunger Games! I devoured all three really quickly too. I actually felt like the worldbuilding was kind of lacking (mostly regarding the other districts) but that's probably because it was so deep in Katniss's head. I just wish Suzanne Collins would release her notes or something. Anyway. I'm going to see the movie at some point, but I haven't yet.

[st_aurafina]

I would have loved knowing more about the world, but I think she chose a careful line between keeping the POV and infodump - I liked picking up on all the little clues she dropped. (And I was checking out a lot of meta - this fan-made map is amazing in detail, and the way they've filtered through all the detail in the books.)

At least there's potential for tie-ins like encylopaedias and guides to Panem?

I'll have to see the movie alone, so I'll wait for the DVD, but I'm looking forward to is.

[wendelah1]

I wear custom orthotics for pronation. They help me. I hope they work for you.

[st_aurafina]

Oh, me too! It's certainly worth a try, anyway.

Did you find it hard to get used to the orthotics? I'm a bit worried about what the podiatrist said about them being painful at first.

[wendelah1]

No, I wore them for a few hours at first, then increased the time gradually, until I could wear them all day. I think it took a week or so to get used to them. I never had any pain. Now I can't live (or walk long distances) without them. I have weird feet.

[nixwilliams]

just wear them in gradually and you should be fine!

[st_aurafina]

Yay! I have a tiny hope!

[nixwilliams]

i've worn orthotics for about 15 years and have had 3 pairs. they're always weird feeling when they're new, but you get used to them!

[vass]

I'm an overpronator too, but apparently not as much as you. Ankle bones nearly touching the ground! Wow.

Have you ever had plantar fasciitis? That's a common thing for overpronators and heavy people (and there's a lot of overlap between the two.) It's not fun at all.

[st_aurafina]

That's what she said, anyway! I have tried to look in the mirror, and it doesn't look that extreme to me, but she was the one down on the floorboards watching me walk, so I guess?

I think I've had plantar fasciitis, but kind of lumped it in with all the other foot pain I've had, and written it off as being due to my size. I was pleasantly surprised when my physio tentatively said "You know, it's not necessarily weight related." I think she's really trying hard with the body-positive thing, which is nice.

[vass]

Even if it is weight-related, doesn't mean it's not treatable (other than by losing weight.) And even if it is weight-related, doesn't mean you deserve to be in pain.

[st_aurafina]

I know! It's just unusual for my physio to be telling me that it might not be fat-related - it's usually the other way around, in that way you often have to do body-positive 101 with medical people.

It was nice, actually - in a situation where I was blindsided by my body issues, there was someone willing to say "Hey, this isn't a fat thing."

[lilmoka]

Ouch, ouch, ouch! ;___; But I'm glad they found out what the problem is <3

*hugs a lot*

[st_aurafina]

Yes, at least I have answers and a possible solution.

*hugs you back*