[MelodyL]

Hi everybody. I hope it's okay to post these photos.

Alan wanted me to show you what his compressed toes looked like before the sponges and after the sponges. We found a system that really works. We’ve tried visco elastic foam thingees, and pads, but ultimately I just went to the ninety nine cents store, got a bag of sponges, cut them in strips.

Here’s what it looks like: when it’s cut up.





Now here is a photo of Alan’s compressed toes, as they normally appear all squeezed together. And you can see the tailor bunion. If left like this, he has neuropathy between his toes.


But lo and behold, when we take the spongy strips, fold them in half and put them between the toes, it looks like this.


He wanted me to tell you “Oh my god, I am not in any pain at all, you must tell these people on the boards that if they have the PN between the toes, and their toes are compressed like mine, to give this a shot. It’s just a bag of sponges.

See how it stretches his toes apart?

So after we do the toe separator things, he puts a bandaid on his ulcer and we place a sponge inside his sock.

Here’s the sponge we use.



He has had no problems since he does this. Why we didn’t think of this system years ago, well, I can kick myself.

But he did ask me to show you step by step, how he de-compresses his toes.

We are going to his podiatrist on Wednesday and show him this whole thing. I cannot wait to see if he either laughs in our faces or says “now that is brilliant”.

Now I realize that this is not for those of you with body-wide PN going on, but for those of you with the toe problems, give this a go.