Sunday, October 4, 2009

Weight Loss: Exercise - Care of our Feet

When I started exercising, which consisted of walking and stair climbing. I realized how important good foot care was. I developed blisters on the bottoms of my feet and sores on the ends of my second toe (more about that later). So I felt it is important to talk about this so you are not incapacitated by foot problems and fall behind in your exercise.

When I started I quickly realized that it is easy to have problems with your feet. I had an old pair of walking shoes and it had some wear spots. I first tried one of those gel sole inserts. I was still having some sore areas on my feet after walking. So, I got a new pair of shoes, New Balance Walking Shoes. I have a history of plantar fasciitis so I need a high arch and the insert that came with the shoe was not giving me enough support. So I got

an insert that gave me good arch support. As you can see from the pictures, you take out the insert that comes with the shoe and place the new one in. If you have plantar fasciitis you should get and use an insert with a large arch. This will cure many cases of plantar fasciitis.


Now many people
have the problem that I have of your second toe being longer then your great toe. Once I started stair climbing I developed sores on both of my second toes. As a matter of fact, I developed a subungual (blood clot
under the nail) hematoma on my right second toe
and actually lost the nail (it has
grown back). In the foot care section of your local pharmacy you can find these foam tubes, like in the photo. You can cut this down to the size you need. I have not had any problems with my long second toes since wearing them.

I can not emphasize enough the importance of good socks. I discovered that old socks because of wear have slight variation in thickness and in shear stress that they apply to your foot. This uneven shear stress can also lead to blistering and sore spots on your feet. I developed blisters on both of my feet (how I treated them below). I realized that it may be from my socks so I bought very thick white socks and have not had the problem since then.

As I mentioned above I developed blisters on both feet. However, I didn't want this to stop me from walking. So I got a product called Moleskin. This is available in the foot care section of your pharmacy. I would cut it so it covered the sore area with a wide margin. Were I could hardly walk at a regular pace without the moleskin on. Once I placed it over the blister or any sore area I could not only walk, I could both power walk and stair climb (including jogging up the stairs).

So take good care of your feet when you do rapid walking, jogging or stair climbing. They are the only feet you'll ever have and I should know unfortunately I have to occasionally amputate the leg of a diabetic with gangrene. With the precautions I presented here you should be able to do any type of exercise. These are also great suggestions just for routine foot care.


1 comment:

  1. There are Dr. Scholls socks for diabetics -- even in Wal-Mart. They are almost the only socks I get anymore.

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