News
All about Feet!
We have had our 40th Delta Club Reunion of the Glasgow 1964 to 1970 medical class.
We voted our 2001 Reunion our best ever at that time, I now say it was the last that was the best.
Talking about youthfulness: everyone was up dancing and to do this for longish periods we need good feet.
So to continue on the quest for anti-aging strategies: look after your feet.
Our feet are truly astonishing, and yet we take them so for granted.
That is until they hurt!
Throughout history, feet have been a fascinating body part, treated to such a variety of fashions and customs, and a source of both pain and pleasure [and for some people fear].
They figure in our language: feet on the ground, sure footed, foot-loose, foothold, footnote to mention some of the expressions.
Painful feet are a curse from every point of view and one of the most painful experiences in historical customs that I have read about is the ancient practice of foot-binding in China.
The idea behind the foot-binding sprang from the concept of the enhancement of a girl’s value on the marriage market. The process took about two years!!! The feet were bound tighter and tighter until all the bones broke except the ones leading directly to the big toe. Gradually the broken bones worked their way through the skin and left a remarkably tiny soft “golden lily” [as it was called] where the girl now walked on the base of her great toe with the rest of the soft foot forming a tiny “O”. The foot was then thought to be a representation of the male/female conjunction and the more perfectly formed, the more highly prized for marriage.
In more modern times we may come across shoe fetishes and toe sucking as a similar preoccupation with the foot.
According to The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons “walking puts one and a half times your body weight on your foot; in one hour’s hard exercise the foot absorbs up to one million pounds of pressure; we walk about a thousand miles each year”!
We all know that we should take care of our feet, but they are often sorely neglected and heavily abused before pain pushes us to pay attention.
For a start, foot trouble affects the WHOLE framework of our body, not just the foot itself. As pain increases the natural movements are disturbed and the weight is more and more unevenly distributed. This translates to the ankle and knee, and then up to the hip and spine. You can actually cause headache through walking badly as the tensions work their way up through your muscles and joints to your neck and scalp muscles!
There are 26 bones in the foot. These need to move in a smoothly coordinated way within the muscles to produce pain free travel.
From birth feet should be a priority care area.
Children’s’ feet should be given as much freedom as possible to grow freely and not put into shoes too soon.
Fashions that encourage support of the foot and freedom of movement need to be acclaimed even if the shoes look ugly to our eyes…it is all a matter of conditioning.
Sports shoes in particular need to be very well fitted and be capable of supporting the foot and ankle against that mighty MILLION pounds of pressure mentioned above.
Hard skin, corns, in growing toenails, splitting heel skin, athletes’ foot, fallen arches, and much of the unpleasant discomforts in ankles, shins, knees and onwards up the body, can be avoided [or helped] through proper foot care.
For those with hard skin on the heels that split, and bleed and burn: gently [but firmly] massage the heels with a clean pumice stone and then hydrating the skin with a good moisturising cream [eg Almendras Dulces Body Milk from Mercadona…inexpensive, but effective]. It is always best to hydrate skin when it is slightly damp and warm [after a bath or shower].
Learning to cut your toenails correctly [as well as wearing the correct shoes] may prevent years of misery from in growing nails. Folk who have diabetes should have their feet examined every year at a minimum.
As a footnote a small quotation from Edward Lear:
“The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said, ‘Someday you may lose them all’;
He replied, ‘Fish fiddle de-dee!’
As you all know, he did lose them in the end, so don’t be a Pobble!