Help - I can't feel my toes!

I'm 33, brand new skier, 5'9", 180 pounds, street shoe 10.5 to 11,
slightly wide (can't wear Nikes). My feet pronate significantly (3.5
degrees left, 3 degrees right), which naturally means I have either flat
feet or fallen arches (not sure how to tell which), and my legs are
externally rotated. I also have an irritated sciatic nerve from a back
injury last summer.

I spent a weekend at Sunday River last year and had a blast. This
Christmas, I went again, and after just a few hours my feet were killing
me in the rental boots, so I decided to take the plunge and buy a pair.
Buster Bean at the ski shop tried me in a few boots from Nordica,
Technica, and I think Atomic before settling on a pair of size 27
Performa 7's. I skied a few runs in them, and went back to have them
adjusted; another salesman added some SBS shims to help my pronation,
which really helped my balance.

This weekend I went to Sugarloaf, and within an hour of putting on the
boots, my (nonexistent) arches were in agony, and my pinky and ring toes
were numb. I went to the ski shop, which has won some sort of "best
bootfitting" award from Ski magazine, and Russ spent about four hours
with me, blowing out the toes, cutting the SBS shims better (they were
curling), adding a heel shim, and heating the boots. I was still
getting numb after 15 minutes or so in the store, but we figured it was
time to try a few runs to loosen them up.

So the next morning I went out, and while the arch pain was mostly gone,
my toes were still getting numb after an hour or two. Back to the shop.
I didn't feel the boots pressing anywhere except the ankle, so Russ
ground the ankles. Went back out, still getting numb. Came back, and
Russ was gone, so Ian helped me. We tried a few things, and finally, I
asked - is it possible that the boots themselves are the wrong size?
Sure enough, they were too loose; I should really be in a 26. They
won't normally exchange boots from one ASC shop to another, but the
manager was coming in the next morning and could do it. I decided to
take advantage of the opportunity and upgrade to X-Wave 8's since I knew
I'd outgrow the Performas rapidly. At first they were agony, but after
swapping the footbeds for wintergreen Superfeet they were wonderful.

Monday morning: Manager exchanges the boots for me. We put in the
Superfeet and I hit the slopes for a few hours - sans SBS shims since
they won't fit yet. Big improvement in control, but my outer toes are
still numb. Back to the shop, where Ian blows out the toes, grinds the
ankles, and heats the boots. Still numb. Adds back the heel shims
temporarily, since outer numbness can be from pronation stressing the
metatarsals. Still numb! I have to catch a bus to go home, so I don't
get to hit the shop on my way off the slopes.

I am really frustrated with this. What, if anything, can I do? Options
include:

- Just ski through the pain for 5-10 days before revisiting it. The
boots are new and relatively stiff, and both the boots and footbeds will
adjust to my feet. And once the boots expand, I can reinsert the SBS
shims.

- Try custom footbeds. Ian doesn't recommend this; he says that
footbeds improve performance but diminish comfort compared to Superfeet
since they're firmer.

- Try orthopedic footbeds. Apparently there are some things doctors can
do that ski shops aren't allowed to do in terms of shaping. Again, Ian
recommends against.

- Try a fancy shop with the scanning machine. Internet FAQs make these
sound fairly common, but Russ said that they were only at "super-
specialized" shops for high-performance skiing.

- Something else...

Help! Ideas?

--
Jay Levitt |
Wellesley, MA | Hi!
Faster: jay at jay dot eff-em | Where are we going?
http://www.jay.fm | Why am I in this handbasket?