Foot Care

Respect your feet, you will expect them to carry you for many, many years. Too often in the early part of our life we tend to ignore taking care of our feet. When I was young my mother would take me to the shoe store every fall before school started and buy me a new pair of saddle shoes. I hated them. They weren't the fashion statement that I thought I should be making. I thank my mother now, because I know how smart she was to get me good support for my feet during those growing years. She also taught me as I got older to continue to buy good supportive shoes. Spend a little extra money but get good support in your shoes.

While I do have a few hammertoes from wearing high heels, they aren't too bad. I don't have any calluses or corns and those are definitely things you want to avoid. I can't tell you how many times I looked at the bottom a diabetic's foot and found a hole through a callus up into the foot. Sometimes with infection not only in the foot but in the bone. This often necessitates the amputation of the foot. Now if you are not diabetic, it doesn't mean you don't have to worry. Many individuals as they age develop peripheral neuropathy. The nerves in the feet begin to grow numb and the individual has difficulty really feeling how they're walking. With this disease, you won't feel any pain necessarily and you can have a major problem on the bottom of your foot without really knowing it.