Arthritis in my big toes has become extremely painfull on a daily basis this year. I'm very close to getting them fused, and have been thinking about it for a few years. I tend to have a (very) hot water bottle on my feet 100% of the time at my desk. I need to reheat the bottle so many times per day that I re-use the water otherwise I'd surely use an equivalent bathtub of water. The reused water is less than drinkable...and rubber particles destroy the kettle hygiene so I have a dedicated water-bottle kettle also....but I got sick of the endless reheat/refill routine, and the bottle rubber decays quite rapidly with this level of use. So I bought a heat mat for my old man toes. This thing draws ~75watts, as compared to a regular floor heater which typically has 2 settings of 1100 and 2200+ watts. I've seen some that draw significantly less, but they're still in the range of hundreds of watts.
The matt takes a solid 15 mins to get really warm. I was worried that it couldn't possibly compete with the hot-bottle, but once it's warmed up I'd say it's comparable if your feet are planted flat down to it,.
~$35 on ebay. Get one.
