Like Your Teeth, You Shouldn’t Go a Day without Taking Care of Your Feet

Dentists have done an amazing job educating the public about the importance of keeping their teeth healthy. You no longer see as many people with missing or rotting teeth; instead, people wear braces to straighten their teeth while flossing and brushing.

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Sadly, there is no such attention to feet health. Just like your teeth, you need to make sure your feet stay healthy for a lifetime. In this article, we delve deep into the simple daily tasks we recommend for keeping your feet strong and healthy, what are some common causes of foot pain and what happens when you ignore this part of your health.

 

What Kind Of Daily Care Do My Feet Need?

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• A daily check for injuries, sores and bruises is a good start.

• Check the toes as well and especially the nails. They shouldn’t have any cracks since that could indicate a fungal infection or an underlying health issue. You shouldn’t feel any discomfort on your feet. If the skin is cracked or dried, that increases the risk of infection and overall discomfort.

• Check the webbing as well, which should not be inflamed or injured.

• Make a warm foot bath but don’t soak them for too long since that can end up drying the skin.

• Pat them dry with a towel, moisturize your feet and afford them a gentle massage.

• Don’t pick off any dead skin or the injury might get worse.

• The socks and shoes you wear should be comfortable and not tight. Get a few different pairs of shoes and change them from time to time, but avoid flip-flops and flats. Buy only the shoes that support your arch well enough.

• Trim your toenails straight across using a nail clipper but don’t touch the corners. Instead, file them down using a nail file, which will prevent an ingrown nail. 

 

What Are The Main Causes Of Foot Pain?

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Too much friction combined with not enough support is the most common cause of foot pain. Corns and calluses are a regular consequence of bad foot care and will disappear on their own, provided you reduce the friction and provide more support for your feet. Both corns and calluses are thick skin where friction occurs, except that corns appear on toes and calluses on the bottom of the foot. 

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Thick socks will protect the skin from friction, but you can also soak the affected skin in warm water and rub it with pumice stone or a similar material to get rid of the damaged skin.

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Salicylic acid dissolves both corns and calluses, though if you don’t take care of the root cause of the problem, they will simply appear again. Be careful with overusing it, especially if you have a chronic health problem. Don’t be too aggressive or you’ll hurt the healthy skin, leading to — corns and calluses.

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The best solution is using custom-fitted shoes with custom orthotics. There’s a reason for the saying “walk a mile in one’s shoes”; poorly fitting shoes are a punishment, though we most often get used to it and ignore the pain and discomfort.

 

Custom-fitted shoes with custom orthotics don’t squeeze or contort your feet, allowing you maximum mobility and comfort with minimal effort. 

 

How Much Do Custom-fitted Shoes With Custom Orthotics Matter?

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Once you try custom-fitted shoes with custom orthotics you will feel enormous relief. You will also regain your sense of balance, especially if you’ve been feeling clumsy or awkward during walking. We get used to buying whichever shoes catch our fancy or just wasting hours trying out different models until we find the ones that hurt the least. That’s not how it’s meant to be.

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Your shoes should feel like a natural extension of your feet, protecting them from impact, friction and the environment. A fine pair of custom-fitted shoes with custom orthotics is worth its weight in gold and you’ll know that’s true as soon as you wear them for the first time.

 

What Happens When You Don’t Take Care Of Your Feet?

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If you don’t take care of your feet, your entire body goes haywire. This is a slow process that takes decades to develop and correct but the good news is just a bit of TLC can halt it in its tracks. Feet provide your entire body with a sense of balance and steady contact with the ground. You don’t even realize it, but the air above you puts a lot of pressure on your body, squeezing it straight into the ground. At sea level, your body will on average be under 14.7 pounds of pressure per square inch, which is a unit called “atmosphere”.

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In an ideal body, this weight will be dispersed among all the bones, muscles, joints, and other connective tissue so that the feet don’t suffer too much. In such a body, there would be little pressure on your feet. If the shoes are fitting, the feet won’t suffer and will easily provide you with balance and certain ease during movements. 

 

In reality, nobody is ideal but we often make matters worse by ignoring pain and discomfort. You first start feeling pain and pressure all over your body without knowing what’s going on. When your feet feel uncomfortable, you will subconsciously start avoiding contact with the ground, which will relieve them for a while but put extra pressure on the rest of your body, leading to imbalance. You will then start feeling back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain and overall misery throughout your body. Bulging veins on your legs, especially after walks, are another symptom that there’s too much pressure on them.

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Ever feel tired as soon as you get out of bed? One cause could be poor footwear leading to enormous pressure on the parts of your body that aren’t used to feeling it, leading to fatigue. A pair of custom-fitted shoes with custom orthotics help distribute that extra weight, relieving your entire body.

 

The Shoe Doctor Has Specialized In Providing Custom Orthotics For 20 Years. 

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People want to take care of their feet, they just don't know how to do it right. The Shoe Doctor provides health feet education to teach people how to care for their feet. Most people wait to come to see us when they can't stand the foot pain anymore or their feet need the equivalent of a root canal! It would be much easier and less expensive to do bi-year maintenance. In some ways, we should take better care of our feet than teeth, because you can replace every tooth in your mouth with implants, but there is no such thing as a foot transplant!

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The right orthotic insoles can greatly reduce foot, knee and hip pain while increasing performance and comfort. Russell at The Shoe Doctor will help educate and assist you in finding the perfect solution for your particular situation. We will create a 3D map of your feet and make custom orthotics for your hiking boots, everyday shoes, and everything else in between. These orthotics, along with our expert advice, will get you using orthotics like a pro, and have you performing at the peak of your abilities in no time!  If you are in the San Francisco Bay Area, give The Shoe Doctor a call to get the best custom orthotics in the area! We are here to assist you, give us a call at (925) 820-0220 for your free consultation!