Comfortable shoes put a spring in her arthritic - and formerly painful - steps - 07/07/04

Comfortable shoes put a spring in her arthritic - and formerly painful - steps - 07/07/04: "Cathy Zinser walks miles every day. For 25 years she’s worked at Mount Clemens General Hospital as a Central Services assistant delivering medical equipment and supplies from one end of the building to the other.

No surprise that at age 55 she often ends up with sore feet and aching legs. “I get in a lot of pain,” Zinser says. “I have scleroderma (a chronic autoimmune disease) in my right leg and six slightly ruptured discs that are fully arthritic.”

That sent Cathy Zinser in search of a comfortable shoe that would help relieve her constant pain. What she found aren’t the most attractive shoes in the world, but she says they’re the most comfortable. “They’ve almost eliminated the pain,” Zinser says. “Some days I’m not even in pain.”

The shoes are called Z-Coil (www.zcoil.com). They’re shoes on a spring. (Think Tigger. Boing ... boing ... boing.) A large coil under each heel decreases the impact of each step. They aren’t cheap; they start around $139. And be warned: They come with stares and glares. These are the kind of shoes that start conversations. But Zinser doesn’t mind the looks. She relishes the comfort. “My feet always throbbed and hurt at the end of the day, and they don’t any more,” she says.