What is a foot orthosis?
A podiatric consultation is wise for medical foot problems (diabetes, rheumatoid, psoriatic arthritis, compound arch pain, or deformity). High-performance athletes are best consulting a podiatrist with a sports interest as the market is broad and confusing for laypeople.
Urine Holds the Secrets of Health
In the past, physicians would hold up a sample of urine to the light and declare all manner of diagnoses. As a podiatrist in training, colour became a prodigious indicator of so many aspects of medical assessment – the colour of the lips for oxygen exchange, the skin and blemishes for cancer, the colour of the nail bed for heart and lung as well as kidney disease. In every case, subtle colour changes might have played a part from the yellowing features created by jaundice and hence a sign of liver malfunction to the loss of pigment in black skin – vitiligo. When it came to body waste, it was easy to assume this had nothing to do with the podiatrist…
Does it matter which foot bone you break?
When my wife broke a bone in her foot back in October 2021, no one was more surprised than me. During my career, I have been interested in two facts. How people walk on their feet for so long without knowing they have broken a bone. Secondly, the methods we use to make such an assessment can fail, or the diagnosis can be missed. I wanted to introduces broken bones into the discussion about foot health as part of my ongoing pain series. Officially we all know breaks as fractures. Fractures, by dictionary definition (Little Oxford dictionary, 2002), are cracks or breaks which serves my purpose well. A quick check on Wiki and the definition has not changed but our views have.
Fitness centres make health better
Fitness centres are often called gyms, but are they just places to enhance our bodies or can they contribute to our health and wellbeing? I talked to Daley Denning, manager of the LED centre at Seaton, to find out more about his service, career, and training.
A Writing Guide
Writing may not be your thing but the process is a great way to reflect on all manner of aspects of clinical practice and health benefits. CFP is NOT encouraging you to write scientific papers. Please reserve those for specific journals. IF for some reason you are rejected, then do try CFP and we can talk about the paper. CFP tries to be non-restrictive and wishes to help new authors. Of course experienced authors are welcome.
Foot and Mouth Tales and Myths
Pooke, an entrepreneur of his time, used good contacts amongst fellow clinical managers, one being a local dental officer. He soon saw the potential of the designs that dentists used and set out to replace the grotesque chairs that were not only substandard but did not recline. Even barber’s chairs reclined. This followed on with implementing autoclaves for sterilisation and Foot Care Assistants who supported chiropodists in these early days.
Winter is coming again
Welcome to my article ‘Winter is coming!’ where I will cover a bit about options to protect feet from the cold without the usual hard sell. Please click on my self-help advice sheet. An article on Trench Foot reminds us that this condition is not one relegated to the past.
Toe shape causing a nerve pain
It would be hard to believe that toe shapes causes a nerve pain. Of course the nerve is not called Morton’s anymore than all cakes are called Kipling, but maybe the shape of a cake could be called Kipling just as a toe shape might be called Morton’s toe.
Feet and the Great War 1914-18
Welcome to ‘Feet and the Great War’ – the origins of trench foot, although associated with the Great War, were recognised long before. This article can be downloaded below as part of ConsultingFootPain’s commemoration of an insane war which took the lives of nearly a million allied military personnel. You can download a full article on trench foot
What’s the difference between chiropody & podiatry?
Two leading organisations promote podiatry for professional members. The Royal College of Podiatry and The Institute of Chiropodists & Podiatrists. The question frequently asked is, what’s the difference between chiropody and podiatry? We must come out with the honest answer, perhaps unpalatable to some, obvious to others. Fact is the only value behind the solution.