Shoes rarely cause hammer toes: usually it is the result of abnormal foot architecture, causing bad mechanics. Primarily, foot architecture is inherited. For example, if your arch rolls downward too much, alignment is disturbed. The ligaments and tendons will pull in the wrong direction, resulting in a buckling of the digit. Over time, a rigid hammertoe results.
Read MoreParents are often concerned about their child’s flattened foot structure. As a toddler, the rounded contour of the toddler’s foot masks the bone structure. With maturity, you see the arch develop. What is an abnormally low arch? Will a child always “grow out of it”? Sometimes not, resulting in the pediatric, then adult, flatfoot deformity.
Read MoreI have a new case for you, and it’s one that some of you may be able to relate to. Have you ever experienced pain from the bottom of your foot? Suzie, our protagonist, did and had for years. She considered herself to be fairly normal: brought up in an average, middle-class family, worked in an office. Medically, nothing remarkable, being moderately over-weight, with mild, controlled hypertension, and that’s about it. Certainly, she was not able to be as active as she used to be, but she attributed that to the pain from her foot.
Read MoreWhen Susan, a 56-year old, advertising executive began experiencing pain in the back of her heel, she immediately attributed it to her new exercise regimen. Surprising, since it only consisted of walking farther, and more often. She wasn’t yet doing any treadmill work, or the yoga she was hoping to return to. Her fitness plan was largely due to the weight gain she had experienced over the last years, which had been steady, and quite disconcerting. Yet, over-all, her health was good. She did have a urinary tract infection some months ago, which had dragged on for weeks before an antibiotic knocked it out.
Read MoreThe vitality of youth is manifested in how quickly and powerfully we are able to walk, when our muscles and joints are healthy and undamaged. But the years take their toll, and walking speed generally slows appreciably as the years pass.
Read MoreThere is an epidemic occurring (I know what you are thinking: another??), considered “silent” by many, taking place world-wide. Although research is on-going, and advances in technique and technology are announced almost daily, no one wants to talk about the non-healing wound they have. But chronic wounds affect around 6.5 million patients in our country, and the costs of caring for those afflicted is staggering.
Read MoreNo one thinks about walking. Walking is an incredibly complex act, that requires little to no conscious thought, but does demand the work of many muscles, the motion of hundreds of joints
in the body, and the stretching of ligaments throughout. Walking is the primary means of exercise for many individuals, but it’s a delicate balance of bone and muscle allows us to stand and walk with ease, and without pain.