Put Your Best Feet Forward This Election Day

The election for our next president is tomorrow and many people are still unsure who they should vote for. There have even been talks of people writing in for Mickey Mouse and Superman. Regardless of whom you decide to vote for come Election Day, one thing is for sure, as a nation, we need to put our best foot forward.

As you go throughout your daily schedule, we are often told that it is important to always put our best foot forward. From a podiatrist’s perspective though, you should really have two best feet to put forward at all times. Whenever you have injured one of your feet, it causes you to not be equal from one side to the other. This can result in a limp, large calluses forming on the bottom of your feet, extra stress on your tendons and ligaments and greater pain than usual on one foot or the other.

For these reasons, you will often hear your doctor say that the pain on one foot can be due to an injury of the other one. We often refer to this as favoring one foot because the other one is pain. This is why it is not uncommon for someone who has injured their Achilles tendon and is using a walking boot to treat it, to all of a sudden, a couple weeks down the road, begin to have pain in their other Achilles.

So, what can we do about this pain? Well, often times, the answer is going to be let us fix the underlying cause of your pain and the other symptoms should go away on their own. However, there are instances where people can significantly injure their other foot in the process of healing the first one. In these instances, it is important to treat both feet according to your doctor’s recommendations.

If you or someone you know has any type of foot injury, Dr. Wachtel would be more than happy to help you put your best feet forward. Our offices serve the North Reading, Lowell, Tewksbury and Dracut, Massachusetts areas. You can give us a call at (978) 794-8406 and our office staff would be more than happy to help you schedule an appointment.