Ready, Set, Decorate!

Tis the season for present shopping, baking and decorating the house. Did you know that it is also one of the busiest times in the emergency room? One of the causes is many more people using ladders to hang up decorations than throughout the rest of the year. It’s all in an effort to get the star on the highest part of the tree or making the roof of the house look like twinkling snow. Next thing you know, you are reenacting Clark Griswold from National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, and you are lying on the ground, not only feeling silly, but possibly in an awful lot of pain. A lot of times, this pain can be in your foot and results from landing on your feet. Because unlike cats; we don’t always land just right on our feet.

In each of your feet, most people have five long bones that are called metatarsals. They serve to connect your toes to your heel. They function in helping us walk and forming the arch of our feet. They also endure a lot of stress throughout our lifetime. For the most part, they take on this stress and handle it without a problem. But every once in a while, the pressure will become to break and these bones will either partially or completely fracture. When jumping from a high place or falling off of a ladder, these bones are prone to injury because they cannot absorb that amount of stress.

Visiting your podiatrist can help determine what mode of action should be taken to alleviate your pain and fix these bones. Depending on the severity of your injury, they may opt to give you a walking cast, a brace, or if it is severe enough, you made need surgery. Through x-ray imaging, your podiatrist will be able to visualize the injury and determine which of these options will work the best for you. Make sure though, that in the time leading up to your office visit, that you are icing your foot and taking anti-inflammatories to help relieve the swelling in your foot.

The holidays are a busy part of the year, but it is important to take the time to make sure that you and your family can have a healthy and safe holiday season. So, stop by and let us help you get back up on your feet.

Kristen Stewart Can Handle the Super Natural and Aching Feet

Kristen Stewart injured herself several days ago while shooting her new film “Snow White and the Huntsman.” She claims that it happened when she was running around the set. This did not stop her from wearing high heels down the red carpet at the premier of her new “Twilight” movie. However, she chose to slip into some more comfortable sneakers for her interviews, saying that her feet were really hurting from wearing her heels.  

Our feet bear the brunt of our day to day activities, whether this is standing on them all day at work, running errands around town or doing our latest workout routine. Regardless of the activity, our feet function as the shock absorber to our daily routine.  For many of us, we switch between several different pairs of shoes throughout the day. There are the sneakers that we wear for our work out, the dress shoes when we go to work, the slippers to pick up the paper and the times that we are barefoot in our house. Each of these different types of footwear, or lack thereof, provides a different level of support to our feet.

There are many different things that can contribute to foot pain. One of the factors that we often overlook though is our shoes. Did you know that most women wear their high heels a half size smaller than what they should? This is because the design of the shoe requires you to; otherwise, your shoe would be slipping off of your foot with every step. The problem with this is that your feet are being cramped into a smaller space. This leads to blisters on your heel from the shoe rubbing up and down the back of it, blisters on your toes from them rubbing against each other and the shoe, and calluses on the bottom of your feet due to the additional pressure. All of these components combined lead to one unhappy foot. No wonder Kristen Stewart wanted to change into the more comfortable pair of sneakers.

It is important that you get your foot measured at least once a year, allowing you to see if your foot size has changed. This can occur due to a number of things, including weight gain or loss, pregnancy, and aging. Your shoe size is not going to be the same that it was when you stopped growing as a teenager; so it is important that we determine if our shoe size has changed. You may require a different size shoe due to the bone structure of your foot. If you have longer toes than typical, you may need a larger shoe, so that your foot can bend at the proper place for walking. This is something that your podiatrist can help you determine. They will also be able to suggest particular brands of shoes that will fit your shoe needs the best. This will allow you to give those little piggies all the space they need to be happy and pain free!

The Bump That's Got You Stumped

So, you are feeling pain on your heels when you wear your tight dress shoes or you go running. The discomfort you are feeling could be due to Haglund’s Deformity. It earned its nickname, because it often hurts the most when women are wearing their high heels. However, this is not a condition that only affects women. This comes from an enlarged bone on the heel that is irritated when your shoe rubs up against the enlarged bone. This deformity can cause pain in the area of your Achille’s tendon, swelling, redness and tenderness. Often times, you will find that wearing backless shoes will relieve the pain. This is because there is nothing applying pressure to your heel. However, for most of us, we can’t wear these shoes all day long.

With many other foot issues, this results from particular foot types. These include walking on the outside of your foot, a high arch and an inflamed Achille’s tendon. After years of repetitive walking on this part of your foot, the Haglund’s deformity will form and cause a broad spectrum of pain for the individual. This can be a condition that can limit your activity.

Your podiatrist can help relieve this pain through several different treatment plans. These depend on how large the bump is. This can be determined through X-Ray and from this a treatment plan that will best suit you can be determined. This can range from padding to surgery.

Choosing to work through the pain can lead to additional injury. The deformity can cause the bursa between the tendon and the bone to become inflamed. This leads to a condition called bursitis. By seeking immediate medical attention initially, you can prevent these other complications from occurring.

Since this condition is a result of a foot type, it is important to correct the underlying issue. Orthotics can be used to prevent you from walking on the outer edge of your heel. Your podiatrist can make an orthotic that matches your particular foot and can be made for the type of shoes you wear day-to-day. By correcting your foot type, it can help to prevent this problem from occurring in the future.

The Prosthetic that Saved a Young Elephant's Life

In recent news, it was reported that a young elephant, Chhouk, in Cambodia has received a prosthetic foot. After being found in a trapper’s patch, the elephant’s leg was severely injured and required 6 of the 8 inches of his leg be removed. With his new leg, he has been given a second chance with childhood and has been able to run through the forest and play with the other elephants. It is a sweet ending to such a terrible event.

Prosthetics are a medical breakthrough that has allowed many people to get back up on their feet again. Amputation, although often looked at as a terrible outcome, is a way to save a person from the dead tissue of their body extending further upward eventually affecting vital organs and resulting in death. Tissue death can result from many complications, including frost bite, ulcers, and trauma. The ability to be mobile is a requirement for many of life’s daily activities. For some, this is achieved by use of a wheelchair or a scooter, but for many, this involves walking on your own two feet. It allows us the ability, like Chhouk, to go running through the woods.

We have all seen the amazing stories of the young kids who will get two prosthetic legs and then complete marathons, play soccer, and live out their dreams. However, these are not the only type of prostheses. There are partial foot and total foot prosthetics available. This is because not all amputations require the leg to be taken off up to the knee. The podiatrist you are working with will work to conserve as much of your leg as possible giving you the quickest recovery possible.

There are also different types of prosthetics that allow different levels of range of motion. Depending on your activity level, the prosthetic that will help you maintain your daily routine will be selected. An important thing to remember is that through working with a podiatrist, many amputations can be avoided, especially those from ulcers. Your podiatrist knows the importance of your foot to you and your lifestyle and is committed to exhaust all other options before suggesting an amputation. In the case of Chhouk though, it was necessary, and modern medical science has saved his life.