August 2015

Shockwave therapy is a treatment option that helps to treat plantar fascia, which is a type of heel and foot inflammation that causes pain to the heel area. This type of injury is often caused by overworking and overusing the feet, and normally happens to people that exercise often such as runners, athletes, obese and overweight individuals, and individuals whose profession requires them to stand for long periods of time.

Since heel pain can be caused by a number of problems including poorly fitting shoes, exercise routines, work hazards, and many more, most plantar fascia treatments include very conservative techniques. Simple things like new shoes, taking ibuprofen, doing heel and foot exercises, and resting your feet can treat the problem. However, for the worst cases, using shockwave therapy is often the best treatment option.

For patients that have tried conventional treatment options, and failed at them, and who have been having heel pain for over six months, Shockwave treatment is often the next option. The concept behind this treatment is simple; shockwaves are generated from a device that delivers shockwaves to the outside of the patients body, and the shockwaves will cause the body’s repair mechanisms to work more efficiently and effectively, and in the end, start repairing the damage done to the heel area.

The goal of shockwave therapy is to eliminate the pain in the heel area, and this should happen because shockwaves trigger the body’s natural repair mechanisms. Basically, this therapy speeds up normal tissue healing in the body, and will also lead to a reduction in pain for the patient by working the pain transmission nerves located in the heel area.

The reason this treatment is gaining popularity is because it is less invasive than surgery, and eliminates the risk factors associated with surgery, such as anesthetic usage. Since this technique also works by helping the body to improve using natural healing techniques, the recovery time should be shorter than surgical processes.

This does not mean that there are not some discomfort issues that can arise out of this treatment for patients. Short term issues normally include skin bruising, minor pain during and after treatment, swelling of the heel, and discolored tissue. These side effects of shockwave therapy should be gone in a few days, giving the patient a fast recovery time which makes it easy to return to the routines of their daily life.

Like most types of treatments, surgeries, and medications, there are certain people that should not have shockwave therapy procedures performed on them. Potential patients with heart conditions and people with pacemakers should not be considered for this technique. People on certain types of medications, usually medications affecting blood clotting, would also be ineligible for this treatment option. And lastly, children and pregnant women should avoid this as well.

Overall, shockwave therapy could be a great option for heel pain because it is less invasive than surgery, helps to trigger the natural healing mechanisms of the body, and should be considered by people who have had long bouts of heel pain and have tried conventional treatment options that failed.

While plantar fasciitis is a common overuse injury in the foot, it has been known to go away with the help of remedies such as shockwave therapy. Plantar fasciitis is one of the most common overuse injuries of the lower extremities. While pain from overuse injuries can be relieved with pain-killing drugs, other methods, such as shockwave therapy are also successful. Other supplemental aids, such as orthotics, can be helpful as well.

Shockwave therapy is a treatment commonly used to treat various injuries and conditions, particularly plantar fasciitis in the feet. To learn more, consult with one of our podiatrists of University Foot and Ankle Center, LLC. Our doctors will provide you with quality foot and ankle information and treatment.

Shockwave Therapy

Shockwave therapy is a new treatment option designed to treat bone conditions such as tennis elbow, shoulder pain, and others. Shockwave therapy uses high intensity sound waves that are directed to the affected tissues of the body with pinpoint accuracy. The effects are very beneficial, leading to a production of collagen fibers, eliminating inflammation.

Who Benefits from Shockwave?

Shockwave is recommended for patients suffering from heel pain and associated problems. Heel pain is a common condition which can be caused by obesity, overexertion, and spending a substantial amount of time on hard floors with your feet exposed and unsupported.

Fast and Easy

The therapy is actually a simple process that can leave patients feeling better the very next day. Shockwave therapy is not as dramatic as it sounds. It enables more blood flow to effected areas, attacking the source of the problem so treatment lasts for a long time.

Treatment & Recovery Time

Shockwave treatment will enable your feet to recover quickly. This is especially important since surgery is not required. It is cost effective and does not require the use of anesthesia. This treatment is a better option to surgery, since it is proven safe.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact our offices located in East Brunswick and Monroe Township, NJ. We offer the newest diagnostic and treatment technologies for all your foot and ankle needs.

Read more about Shockwave Therapy

Corns are thickened areas on the skin’s surface, to the point of being irritating and sometimes painful. Commonly found on the feet, corns are circular or cone-shaped and develop where there are areas of pressure or friction, such as on the little toe when it rubs up against shoes, or on the ball of your foot. The official medical term for corns is Helomas.

Corns are often confused with a callus, but there is a difference between them. Corns can be a raised bump that are painful to the touch. They consist of a rough, thick area of skin that may be dry or waxy. Corns tend to be surrounded by skin that is inflamed, and are usually much smaller than calluses.

Removing the dead skin that has built up is the key in treating corns. Salicylic acid medication is most common in accomplishing this. The acid works by dissolving keratin, which is the protein that makes up the majority of corns. You can purchase salicylic acid over-the-counter in products such as wart removers. It comes in a variety of forms such as medicated pads, drops, or creams. However, people who are diabetic should not use salicylic acid, but should consult their doctor immediately.

According to the product directions, applying the medication directly onto the corn will treat it. The top layer of the corn will begin to turn a white color after use. When that occurs, the layers of skin can then be peeled away, making the corn smaller. Shaving off corns with razors or other pedicure equipment is never a good idea. This can potentially lead to infection. If your corn gets infected, and you do not respond with medication, a visit to the doctor will be necessary.

Another way to treat corns and help prevent their return is by using orthotic inserts, fitted by a podiatrist. Inserts fit right into your shoes and adjusts the way your foot fits into your shoes, thus fixing the way you walk. This will lower your chances of getting corns, and eliminate current corns, by reducing the friction.

Surgery is rarely used to treat corns, but does occur on occasion. Surgery actually deals with the underlying issue that causes corns. During surgery, the bone is shaved and any abnormalities are corrected, thus reducing the amount of friction that occurs during walking.

To prevent corns, the first step is reducing friction. Always wear shoes that fit well and don’t rub your feet. Pads can be purchased if you notice rubbing developing. These pads can be purchased over-the-counter, and can be simply placed on the irritated area. Wearing cushioned insoles in your shoes can always reduce the friction, and making sure to wear well-fitting shoes. This will ensure that your foot is not being squeezed awkwardly, and prevent corns from forming in the first place.

Corns, hardened layers of skin formed through pressure or friction on the feet, are known to be unsightly and painful. Without the proper treatment, abnormalities in the gait of the foot can arise. Experts suggest wearing proper fitting shoes, toe splints, or orthotics to reduce any pressure that may cause corns. Diabetics especially need to pay attention to this condition as diabetic feet are more susceptible to complications.

Corns can be a huge nuisance for the feet. If you have any foot or ankle concerns contact one of our podiatrists of University Foot and Ankle Center, LLC. Our doctors will attend to your foot and ankle needs.

Corns: What are they? And how do you get rid of them?
Corns can be described as areas of the skin that have thickened to the point of becoming painful or irritating. They are often layers and layers of the skin that have become dry and rough, and are normally smaller than calluses.

Ways to Prevent Corns
There are many ways to get rid of painful corns such as wearing:
- Well-fitting socks
- Comfortable shoes that are not tight around your foot
- Shoes that offer support

Treating Corns
Treatment of corns involves removing the dead skin that has built up in the specific area of the foot. Salicylic acid can help in getting rid of these corns because it dissolves keratin, which is the protein that makes up a good majority of corns. Podiatrists recommend that people with diabetes not use salicylic acid but should consult with their podiatrist regarding the treatment of corns.

If you have any questions feel free to contact our offices located in East Brunswick and Monroe Township, NJ. We offer the newest diagnostic tools and technologies to treat your foot and ankle needs.

Read more about Corns on the Feet

According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, one out of every three Americans suffers from arthritis pain; many of those being over the age of 50. Recently many people have been receiving acupuncture as a form of treatment for the disease. Popular in Chinese medicine, acupuncture is used when the energy in the body is blocked. Many have found acupuncture to be beneficial especially since the treatment can be modified to be unique to the individual's needs.

The feet are often common sites for arthritis to occur in the body. If you are struggling with arthritis in your feet or ankles, call one of our podiatrists of University Foot and Ankle Center, LLC. Our doctors can examine your lower extremities to help alleviate your joint pain.

Arthritic Foot Care

Arthritis is a joint disorder that involves inflammation of different joints in your body, such as in your feet. Arthritis is often caused by a degenerative joint disease and causes mild to severe pain in all affected areas. On top of this, swelling and stiffness in the affected joints can also be a common symptom of arthritis.

In many cases, wearing ill-fitting shoes can worsen the effects and pain of arthritis. Wearing shoes that have a lower heel and extra room can help your feet feel more comfortable. In cases of rheumatoid arthritis, the arch in your foot may become problematic. Buying shoes with proper arch support that contour to your feet can help immensely.

Alleviating Arthritic Pain

• Exercises that stretch the foot can prevent further pain and injury and increase mobility
• Most of the pain can be alleviated with anti-inflammatory drugs, heat, and topical medications
• Massages can help to temporarily alleviate pain.

It is best to see your doctor for the treatment that is right for your needs and symptoms. Conditions vary, and a podiatrist can help you determine the right method of care for your feet.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our offices located in East Brunswick and Monroe Township, NJ. We offer the newest diagnostic and treatment technologies for all of your foot ankle injuries.

Read more about Arthritic Foot Care

During your lifetime, you will probably walk about 75,000 miles, which is quite a lot of stress to put on your feet. As you get older, the 26 bones and 30 joints in your body will lose flexibility and elasticity, and your foot’s natural shock absorbers will wear down too. Having arthritis added to this mix only makes matters worse because your joints will become distorted and inflame, which is why arthritic foot care needs to be something you think about every day.

When dealing with arthritis, having additional foot complications, such as bunions, hammertoes, or neuroma, can be a serious detriment. To avoid these, buying well-fitting shoes with a lower heel and good support are a must. Arthritis causes you to lose your arch, so having shoes with good arch support is also highly recommended.

Aside from getting good arch support, the shoes need to fit comfortably and properly as well. A good place to start is by leaving a finger width between the back of the shoe and your foot to gauge proper size. It is also helpful to have a square or rounded toe box in the front to provide even more comfort. Another thing to look for is a rubber sole that can provide a cushion and absorb shock as you walk. This adds flexibility to the ball of your foot when you push off your heel to walk.

Exercise is another key aspect of arthritic foot care, not only strengthening and stretching your muscles and joints, but helping to prevent further injury and pain as well. Stretching the Achilles tendon for example, the tendon located in the back of your heel, will give you added mobility and reduce pain due to stress. Another thing you can do is massage your feet, kneading the ball of your foot as well as your toes from top to bottom.

Stretching the Achilles tendon is a simple exercise that you can do at home anytime. Lean against the wall with your palms flat against the surface while placing one foot forward, towards the wall, and one foot behind you. Bend your forward knee towards the wall while keeping your back knee locked straight, and make sure both your heels are completely touching the ground at all times. This will stretch your Achilles tendon and calf muscles as well, and you will feel the stretch almost immediately. You can also stretch your toes in a couple ways. One involves taking a rubber band and wrapping it around both your big toes while your heels remain together, then pull them apart to stretch your big toe. You can also place a rubber band around all the toes of one of your feet and then try to separate each individual toe, stretching them all.

A final step you can take to help your arthritis is taking non-steroid, non-inflammatory drugs or topical medicines with capsaicin. Unfortunately there is no complete way to remove all of your arthritic pain, but following some of this advice can go a long way in staying as pain free as possible.

During your lifetime, you will probably walk about 75,000 miles, which is quite a lot of stress to put on your feet. As you get older, the 26 bones and 30 joints in your body will lose flexibility and elasticity, and your foot’s natural shock absorbers will wear down too. Having arthritis added to this mix only makes matters worse because your joints will become distorted and inflame, which is why arthritic foot care needs to be something you think about every day.

When dealing with arthritis, having additional foot complications, such as bunions, hammertoes, or neuroma, can be a serious detriment. To avoid these, buying well-fitting shoes with a lower heel and good support are a must. Arthritis causes you to lose your arch, so having shoes with good arch support is also highly recommended.

Aside from getting good arch support, the shoes need to fit comfortably and properly as well. A good place to start is by leaving a finger width between the back of the shoe and your foot to gauge proper size. It is also helpful to have a square or rounded toe box in the front to provide even more comfort. Another thing to look for is a rubber sole that can provide a cushion and absorb shock as you walk. This adds flexibility to the ball of your foot when you push off your heel to walk.

Exercise is another key aspect of arthritic foot care, not only strengthening and stretching your muscles and joints, but helping to prevent further injury and pain as well. Stretching the Achilles tendon for example, the tendon located in the back of your heel, will give you added mobility and reduce pain due to stress. Another thing you can do is massage your feet, kneading the ball of your foot as well as your toes from top to bottom.

Stretching the Achilles tendon is a simple exercise that you can do at home anytime. Lean against the wall with your palms flat against the surface while placing one foot forward, towards the wall, and one foot behind you. Bend your forward knee towards the wall while keeping your back knee locked straight, and make sure both your heels are completely touching the ground at all times. This will stretch your Achilles tendon and calf muscles as well, and you will feel the stretch almost immediately. You can also stretch your toes in a couple ways. One involves taking a rubber band and wrapping it around both your big toes while your heels remain together, then pull them apart to stretch your big toe. You can also place a rubber band around all the toes of one of your feet and then try to separate each individual toe, stretching them all.

A final step you can take to help your arthritis is taking non-steroid, non-inflammatory drugs or topical medicines with capsaicin. Unfortunately there is no complete way to remove all of your arthritic pain, but following some of this advice can go a long way in staying as pain free as possible.

Hammertoes are painful deformities that frequently form on the second, third, or fourth toe. The condition is often caused by an issue in foot mechanics: the person’s particular gait or the manner in which they walk, or shoes that do not comfortably fit the deformity. Hammertoes can be formed after wearing shoes that are too narrow or short for the foot or have excessively high heels. Shoes that are not properly sized will force the toes into a bent position for long periods of time, causing the muscles to shorten and toes to bend into the deformity of a hammertoe.

Hammertoe can also be caused by complications from rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, trauma to the foot, heredity, or a cerebral vascular accident. Pain and difficult mobility of the toes, deformities, calluses, and corns are all symptoms of a hammertoe.

Someone who suspects they have the symptoms of a hammertoe should consult with a physician—particularly a podiatrist. Podiatrists diagnose and treat complications of the foot and ankle. If the podiatrist discovers that the affected toes are still flexible, treatment for the hammertoe may simply involve exercise, physical therapy, and better-fitting shoes. Treatment for hammertoes typically involves controlling foot mechanics, such as walking, through the use of customized orthotics.

For more serious cases in which the toes have become inflexible and rigid, surgery may be suggested. During the operation, the toe would receive an incision to relieve pressure on the tendons. A re-alignment of the tendons may then be performed by removing small pieces of bone to straighten the toe. In some cases, the insertion of pins is needed to keep the bones in the proper position as the toe heals. The patient is usually allowed to return home on the same day as the surgery.

If surgery is performed to repair a hammertoe, following the postoperative directions of your doctor is pertinent. Directions may include several stretches, picking up marbles with your toes, or attempting to crumple a towel placed flat against your feet. Wear shoes that have low heels and a wide amount of toe space to maintain comfort. Closed shoes and high heels should be avoided. Shoes with laces allow the wearer to adjust how fitted her or she may want the shoes to be and also allow for greater comfort. To provide adequate space for your toes, select shoes that have a minimum of one-half-inch of space between the tip of your longest toe and the inside of the shoe. This will also relieve pressure on your toes and prevent future hammertoes from forming.

Other preventative measures that can be taken include going shopping for new shoes in the middle of the day. Your feet are its smallest in the morning and swell as the day progresses; trying on and purchasing new shoes midday will give you the most reliable size. Be sure to check that the shoes you purchase are both the same size. If possible, ask the store to stretch out the shoes at its painful points to allow for optimum comfort.

Jo Wood, ex-wife of Rolling Stone’s Ronnie Wood, has suffered from hammertoes, a condition that for her was hereditary and deformed her second toe. The pain eventually had gotten so bad that Wood decided to get surgery in which the surgeon had to remove a portion of the bone to realign the toe. Although there are non-surgical treatments, surgery is an option if pain does not recede. Eighteen months after her surgery, Wood was back to her regular routine.

Hammertoes can be a painful condition to live with. If you are suffering from hammertoes, contact one of our podiatrists of University Foot and Ankle Center, LLC. Our doctors will treat your foot and ankle needs.

Hammertoe

Hammertoe is a foot deformity that affects the joints of the second, third, fourth, or fifth toes of your feet. It is a painful foot condition in which these toes curl and arch up, which can often lead to pain when wearing footwear.

Symptoms

• Pain in the affected toes
• Development of corns or calluses due to friction
• Inflammation
• Redness
• Contracture of the toes

Causes

• Genetics – people who are genetically predisposed to hammertoe are often more susceptible
• Arthritis – because arthritis affects the joints in your toes, further deformities stemming from arthritis can occur
• Trauma – direct trauma to the toes could potentially lead to hammertoe
• Ill-fitting shoes – undue pressure on the front of the toes from ill-fitting shoes can potentially lead to the development of hammertoe

Treatment

• Orthotics – custom made inserts can be used to help relieve pressure placed on the toes and therefore relieve some of the pain associated with it
• Medications – oral medications such as anti-inflammatories or NSAIDs could be used to treat the pain and inflammation hammertoes causes. Injections of corticosteroids are also sometimes used
• Surgery – in more severe cases where the hammertoes have become more rigid, foot surgery is a potential option

If you have any questions please contact our offices located in East Brunswick and Monroe Township, NJ. We offer the newest diagnostic and treatment technologies for all your foot and ankle needs.

Read More about Hammertoes

Undergraduate students at the University of Delaware have created a SmartBoot designed to closely monitor the progress of broken foot. The design behind the boot came from the idea that after sustaining an injury on the lower extremities, patients are sent home with instructions they may not know how to follow correctly. Professor Jill Higginson states, “Patients are often trained in the clinic on a bathroom scale and then sent home with crutches, with the assumption they can consistently perform partial weight bearing on their own.” The SmartBoot is designed to fix the confusion by studying the progress of the foot and letting the doctor know if the correct amount of weight has been put on the foot.

A broken foot requires immediate medical attention and treatment. If you are seeking treatment for a broken foot, visit one of our podiatrists of University Foot and Ankle Center, LLC. Our doctors will assess your injury and provide you with quality treatment.

Broken Foot Causes, Symptoms, and Treatment

A broken foot is caused by one of the bones in the foot typically breaking when bended, crushed, or stretched beyond its natural capabilities. Usually the location of the fracture indicates how the break occurred, whether it was through an object, fall, or any other type of injury.

Common Symptoms of Broken Feet:

• Bruising
• Pain
• Redness
• Swelling
• Blue (foot)
• Numbness
• Cold
• Misshapen
• Cuts
• Deformities

Those that suspect they have a broken foot shoot seek urgent medical attention where a medical professional could diagnose the severity.

Treatment for broken bones varies depending on the cause, severity and location. Some will require the use of splints, casts or crutches while others could even involve surgery to repair the broken bones. Personal care includes the use of ice and keeping the foot stabilized and elevated.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact our offices located in East Brunswick and Monroe Township, NJ. We offer the newest diagnostic tools and technologies to treat your foot and ankle needs.

Read more about Broken Feet