Referred pain
I write this as I roll my foot on a small, semi-hard purple ball. It’s painful, in a good way.
I’m rolling my foot because I have lower back pain. I noticed the other day that my left big toe tingled when I moved in certain ways. I hadn’t experienced stinging there before, and it improved with some stretching.
I’d read that back discomfort often stems from issues in our feet. A nerve (the L5) runs from my big toe all the way up my leg. It invisibly radiates an ache into my back. I don’t feel the entire nerve, so had I not known about the foot-back connection, I probably wouldn’t have thought to link the two.
We think that quelling pain where we perceive it will solve it. But where pain shows up is often not where it originates.
Sometimes, an issue in one part of our lives leaks into a totally different part. We’re caught off-guard when we’re “not like ourselves.” This is referred pain.
It’s all connected, and the symptom is not the source. We have to stay humble, and curious: the smallest and most unassuming things can have the biggest impact.