You will need to avoid soaking the wound, including swimming or taking a bath, until it’s completely healed. In order to keep circulation to the site working well, you’ll also want to keep your surgical site above the level of your heart when lying down, and avoid crossing your legs. Because the joint nearest to the amputation can stiffen, your doctor will give you exercises to do to keep it mobile, and he or she may also have suggestions about sitting or reclining positions that will keep your joint from freezing up.

Some people experience phantom limb sensations after an amputation. This is when you feel as though your amputated limb is still there. It can feel prickly, hot or cold, or numb. You may even feel as though your missing toes are moving, or that your missing limb is getting shorter or is in a strange position. You may feel pain in the missing part as well, like a burning sensation, shooting pains, or aches and cramps. Generally these phantom sensations fade over time, although you may experience them indefinitely. Sometimes moving your leg, or even just keeping it warm can help. You can reduce swelling in the area (which sometimes contributes to phantom sensations) by wearing an elastic or compression bandage on your stump, or a shrinker sock.

Many people who have had amputations choose to wear prosthetics to maintain mobility and appearance. Fortunately, prosthetic technology has come a long way since the days of piratical wooden limbs and hooks. Many people with prosthetic limbs are able to participate in rigorous physical activities (although you should always discuss such activities with your podiatrist before getting started) like hiking, skydiving and even running marathons. You can also obtain special prosthetics for dancing, skiing, and cycling, among others. Talk with your doctor about the best prosthetic option for you.

Dealing with an amputation can be difficult, and the emotional toll of the surgery may be greater than the physical. If you need support for sadness or depression, there are numerous groups you can turn to, both in person and online. Your doctor can help you explore options to cope with any emotional pain you may be experiencing. However, with a hopeful, positive outlook (and if you continue to do your best to keep up your health), you can have as fulfilling and satisfying a life as anyone else.

The post Life After Amputation appeared first on Pueblo Ankle and Foot Care.

Now, just as a quick review, bunions occur when the structure of the foot puts more stress than usual on the big toe joint. This may eventually stretch out the soft tissue around the joint, and the top of the big toe may start to angle toward the pinky toe as the big toe joint starts to jut outward. Bunions usually become painful when the shoes you wear don’t accommodate the change in the shape of your foot. Things start to rub, you get uncomfortable, and eventually yell to the sky, “What the heck, universe?!? Why is this happening to me?”

Pes Cavus (or high arched foot) sometimes happens when the muscles pulling the ball of your foot and your heel toward each other are stronger than the muscles pulling them back up. Your arches stay very high, even when you put weight on them. And because the weight is being put on your feet in an unusual way (all on the heel and ball of the foot), it stresses the foot out quite a bit, making your feet sore, shoes uncomfortable, and your ankle unstable and prone to sprains. And again you may find yourself raging against the universe.

This may be fascinating, you say, since foot problems are endlessly intriguing, but what does this mean for me? Well, if you have an inkling that you’re going to be developing a medical condition (like bunions or high arched feet), your podiatrist may be able to intervene early on in the disease. This is good news because problems like bunions and high arched feet are more effectively treated when they’re caught earlier. So, if your mother and grandmother and two aunts all have bunions, you may just want to get yourself checked out too. It could save you a lot of pain in the long run. And maybe help you avoid ranting at the cosmos, at least about your feet.

The post What You Did To Get Your Feet appeared first on Pueblo Ankle and Foot Care.

Amputations may be necessary for a variety of different reasons. Your foot may be crushed in an automobile accident, and be irreparable. Or, the tissues in your foot can be badly damaged or even killed by frostbite or burns. You might have a tumor, or an infection that won’t go away or that is so aggressive that removing the affected limb is the only way to protect the rest of your body from it. You could have a wound that won’t heal, often associated with poor circulation from diabetes or smoking. Or, a scurvy dog could have come at you with a cutlass. Whatever the cause, amputation is often the last option, the one that doctors turn to when all else has been tried and fails.

Preventing an amputation from happening in the first place can be possible, depending on your situation. If you have diabetes for instance, keeping your blood sugar under control can help you avoid the damage to your nerves and circulation that can lead to necessary amputations. If you smoke, you should give up smoking to prevent further damage to your circulatory system. (Poor nerve function and lack of circulation can make it hard to feel injuries to your foot, and can make it difficult for such injuries to heal.) If you do have nerve damage, be sure to check your foot daily for signs of injury, and see a podiatrist regularly. And if you develop an infection, see your foot doctor immediately. (If you’re a pirate, try to avoid any cutlasses.)

If you do end up needing an amputation, you’ll need to take care of your surgical site carefully, and you’ll need to learn how to move in a different way. For the first few days after surgery, your stump will be bandaged, and you or someone helping you will probably need to change the dressing as instructed by your doctor. Keep your eyes open for warning signs of infection or other problems with the surgical site, such as red streaks going up your leg, an increase of redness in the area, swelling or warmth, drainage or bleeding that starts up again, a fever of 101.5 or higher that happens more than once, or if the skin around the wound begins to open or pull away or turn dark or black.

Even if you avoid complications, your surgical site will probably feel painful for several days. Medication is available to help with the pain of course, but talk to your doctor if the pain becomes worse, or if it isn’t being managed well with your medication. If pain persists after your wound has healed, you can try tapping your scar gently, or rubbing it with a soft cotton or linen cloth.

It is vital that the remaining portion of your foot heal in order to prevent the need for an additional higher amputation.  If you have sufficient blood flow to the remaining foot then the postoperative period should be uneventful.  Make sure you follow your podiatrist”s instructions and then maintain a regular visit schedule with him or her and you will stay on track.

The post So Part Of Your Foot Has Been Amputated appeared first on Pueblo Ankle and Foot Care.

Acute injuries are difficult to avoid (unless you have one of those handy devices that stops time just as some guy is about to bowl you over). If you are the Jimmer – They happen all at once, like when you twist your ankle as you land from a jump, or pull a tendon as you scramble to block another player.  Jimmer’s most recent injury was a contusion to the calf muscle for which he has been using a protective sleeve.

Chronic injuries develop over time, and may include stress fractures, inflammation of tendons, shin splints or blisters. Fortunately, chronic injuries can be prevented with proper training and equipment (and you don’t even need a time-stopping device). Court shoes can keep your foot secured as you move rapidly from side to side, and they give extra support to your ankle, which can prevent sprains and fractures. Acrylic socks can prevent blisters from forming. Stretching and warm-up exercises before you start to play can also help.

If you do get an acute injury on the court, it’s essential that you stop playing and apply first aid as soon as possible. Resting your injured foot, applying ice and a compression bandage, as well as elevating your foot can usually help, and you can also take ibuprofen or aspirin for temporary pain relief. Then, you should see your podiatrist as soon as possible.  Of course, if you ARE Jimmer Fredette you play through the pain and still shoot bombs from 30 feet.  You will still weave through traffic on your way to a 3 point play the old fashioned way.  But are you Jimmer Fredette – ahh no.

Be sure to follow your doctor’s instructions, and your injury (whether chronic or acute) should heal up enough to get you back on the court again. And next time, you might want to bring along one of those time-stopping devices . . . or . . . be Jimmer Fredette.

The post Fredette About Your Basketball Injury appeared first on Pueblo Ankle and Foot Care.

Just as the social consequences of alcoholism can be devastating, so too are the physical consequences to your body. One of the dangers of alcoholism is that it can cause significant nerve damage. You may have heard how those with diabetes may suffer from peripheral neuropathy (or nerve damage), but people with alcoholism can develop neuropathy as well. This nerve damage may be caused by ethanol, which is believed to be toxic to nerve tissue. Or, damage to the nerves may be a result of the lack of nutrition frequently seen in alcoholics. People with alcoholism may drink instead of eating properly, and alcohol can use up or interfere with the absorption of vitamins and minerals, thus depriving nerves of crucial nutrients. Most likely, neuropathy is caused a bit by both.

Your peripheries (including your feet) may be particularly susceptible to nerve damage. Any of your several types of nerves can be affected: your sensory nerves (which provide information about sensation, such as pain or heat), motor nerves (which carry signals to your muscles to provide tone and movement), or your autonomic nerves (which control reflexive, or non-voluntary body functions, such as breathing, heartbeats, and digestion). The nerve damage that’s most likely to affect your feet directly is to the sensory and motor nerves.

Losing motor nerve function may or may not sound like a big deal to you. I mean, do your feet need to be totally toned to do their work properly? Well, kind of. Losing motor nerves in the foot may mean that the muscles in your feet will weaken. This weakening can cause deformities such as claw toe (toes that curl down into the soles of your shoes like bird claws), which can lead to serious discomfort as they rub against the inside of your shoe and form calluses. If coupled with sensory nerve damage, these calluses can become serious problems.

Imagine you have an infected toenail. It hurts, right? So you go to the podiatrist, who takes care of it for you, and you heal and go about your business. Now, imagine if you still had that infected toenail, but couldn’t feel it. Or if you had a blister on the bottom of your foot and kept walking on it. Or a splinter. Or a stress fracture.

Sensation is a vital signal from our bodies. Pain, while unpleasant, lets us know when something is wrong. If you couldn’t feel pain in your feet, and then injured them, the injury would get worse and worse over time, perhaps leading to ulcers, Charcot foot, or other serious complications.

Sometimes damage to sensory nerves causes pain rather than numbness. Some people feel prickling or pins and needles sensations in their feet, while others may have pain so intense that even having a sheet on top of the feet is unbearable.

Treating alcoholism can be difficult. Certainly, getting support while you defeat your alcohol problem is essential, and support groups such as AA and others exist just for such a purpose. Once you begin to get control of your alcohol use, it’s important to tackle your medical issues from other angles as well. While nerve damage is usually permanent, there are things you can do to prevent further harm to them. Taking nutritional supplements (particularly thiamine and folic acid) can help, as will avoiding alcohol.

Pain medications, physical therapy, antidepressant or anticonvulsant medications can all help ease your symptoms, and your doctor may have other suggestions based on your individual case. It’s also important that you treat your feet very, very carefully. Take care not to burn your feet with hot water, inspect your feet regularly for damage, and always check your footwear for foreign objects before putting them on.

It may be hard, but with help from professional sources, as well as from friends and family, you can overcome your addiction. You may not be able to reverse some of the physical damage caused by alcoholism, but with your doctor’s help, you should be able to control your symptoms and have a life that both you and your feet will enjoy.

The post Effects Of Alcoholism On The Feet appeared first on Pueblo Ankle and Foot Care.

Knowing what kinds of diseases your siblings, parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents have had gives you a clue about what kinds of health situations you might face, or your children or grandchildren. So, just like knowing that your family has a history of cattle rustling can help you steer clear of the whole ranching industry, so too can knowing your family health history help you avoid some health problems, or at least get them detected earlier when they’re more treatable.

A few diseases that tend to run in families include diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, stroke, or more rare diseases like sickle-cell anemia, hemophilia, and cystic fibrosis. Talking with family members about their own health or about the health of deceased relatives will help you create a family health portrait of things to which you and other family members might be more susceptible. You can then discuss these conditions with your doctor, who can suggest lifestyle changes to avoid certain problems, provide screenings for the potential disease, or refer you to a genetic counselor if necessary.

If you’re wondering how to get started, the U.S. Surgeon General has spearheaded a Family Health History Initiative. You can go to https://familyhistory.hhs.gov to create your own family health portrait. The interface is wonderfully intuitive, and is also available in Spanish and Portuguese. You can print your family health chart while on the website, or save the information to your home computer, to be accessed and edited as needed. Your state health department might also have toolkits to use in developing your own family health history.

Forewarned is definitely forearmed (ore forelegged in my case), especially when it comes to your health. So, take this next family get-together (Thanksgiving is officially designated National Family History Day, by the way) to chat about your family health. And maybe break out that story about Aunt Thelma again. Because seriously, it is just so darn good.

The post Why Your Family History Is So Important appeared first on Pueblo Ankle and Foot Care.

Unfortunately, sometimes lifestyle changes aren’t enough. There are medications available to treat peripheral arterial disease, mainly by addressing different aspects of PAD, such as high blood pressure, clot-forming, blood sugar, and cholesterol. Different medications may also be prescribed to widen blood vessels and prevent blood clots, thus reducing the symptoms associated with PAD.  Alert – You are at increased risk for heart attack and stroke if you have PAD.

Other treatments include angioplasty, in which a catheter is threaded through your blood vessels all the way to the problem spot. A balloon is inflated and pressed against the sides of the blood vessel to flatten the blockage and stretch the artery to increase bloodflow. A vascular surgeon/interventionist may use a stent (a metal mesh tube) to keep your blood vessel open.

Bypass surgery uses a blood vessel from another part of your body, or one made of synthetic material, to provide an alternate route for bloodflow around the blockage. The new vessel is attached above and below the blockage.

Or, your doctor may make use of thrombolytic therapy, during which he or she will inject a drug to dissolve a clot right at the site of the blockage in your artery.

The very best way to treat a disease is never to get it in the first place. And there’s a lot you can do to reduce your risk of developing peripheral arterial disease.

1) First of all, quit smoking. (If you smoke, that is. It’s a little difficult to quit if you’ve never started.) Smoking is the biggest risk factor for PAD.

2) Control your blood sugar if you have diabetes. High blood sugar can lead to significant damage of your circulatory system.

3) Get moving. Exercising even 30 minutes three times a week can help out a lot, improving your bloodflow and making your heart stronger. (With any luck, you may get really enjoy playing racquetball, or walking around your neighborhood, or doing jumping jacks on your trampoline while singing the national anthem, or whatever the heck it is you and your doctor feel is a good exercise for you.)  Keep in mind, you will want clearance from your podiatrist prior to undertaking any significant increase in activity.

4) Keep your blood pressure and cholesterol levels in healthy ranges. Think of it as keeping the gunky hair clogs out of your own bodily plumbing system.

5) Keep your weight in a healthy range. Obesity is a factor in a lot of diseases, and PAD is definitely included on that list.

Fortunately, there’s a lot that can be done to treat peripheral arterial disease and increase your chances of a long, healthy life.  You will note, however, that these things require action on your part.  If you are at risk for or already have PAD you can do something about it now! Good luck.

The post So You Have Peripheral Arterial Disease – 5 Things You Can Do Now To Improve Your PAD appeared first on Pueblo Ankle and Foot Care.

However, those who do have symptoms may experience the following:

1) Leg pain or cramping (in the hips, thighs or calves) made worse by activity, such as walking, running or climbing.

2) Feeling weak or numb in your leg.

3) Changes in the appearance of your leg, such as color, a slowing of hair growth or hair loss on the legs, a slowing of toenail growth, thickening toenails, or shiny skin.

4) A feeling of coldness in your foot or lower leg.

5) Sores on your legs, feet or toes that just won’t heal.

6) (As the condition worsens) Leg pain or cramping while at rest, sometimes bad enough to keep you from sleeping.

You’re the kind of person who calls the plumber when your pipes are seriously out of order, aren’t you? Well, because peripheral arterial disease is so serious, it’s important to check with your doctor about it. This is especially important if you’re experiencing any of the above symptoms, are over 70, or if you have any risk factors for the disease.

Like any good doctor, your podiatrist will ask you about your symptoms, get a thorough medical history, and will perform a physical exam. One of the more common tests for PAD is the Ankle-brachial index (or ABI), which compares the blood pressure in your arm to the blood pressure in your ankle.

Ultrasound and angiography (looking at blood vessels, often by using injected dye) can also help your doctor understand how blood is flowing through your legs, and find any blockages that may be present.

The post The Six Most Common Symptoms Of Peripheral Arterial Disease appeared first on Pueblo Ankle and Foot Care.

Well, okay. Maybe plumbers are pretty great. They have serious clog-removing skills, can tighten up a valve like nobody’s business, and are even sometimes pretty good at telling jokes. In fact, even plumbers aside, plumbing itself (of the indoor variety) is probably one of the top ten inventions we aren’t grateful for enough. (If it helps, think of: ‘winter’ and ‘outhouse’ together.)

But the body says to all of this modern plumbing stuff, “Phhft.” Perhaps not literally (or perhaps indeed literally, depending on your fiber intake), but figuratively your body declares, “I, or rather humans as a whole, or rather all mammals, or rather all animal life and plant life too, sort of, have been doing this whole plumbing thing a whole lot longer than you new-comers.” And the body is absolutely right. Veins? Genius. Arteries? Absolute works of art. Capillaries? Magical.

In short, your body’s blood-moving plumbing system is pretty darn great (even more so than plumbers). But even amazing, genius, magical works of art have problems. And sometimes, they can be pretty serious, like with peripheral arterial disease.

Peripheral arterial disease (or PAD to its friends, although, come to think of it, diseases don’t have many friends) is when plaque or other deposits build up on the insides of the arteries that take blood out to your legs and arms (your peripheries). This buildup hardens your blood vessels and restricts the flow of blood through your arteries, thus cutting down circulation. (Plaque buildup in arteries is also known as atherosclerosis—peripheral arterial disease is most often caused by atherosclerosis in the peripheral arteries.)

To help you visualize this, imagine a pipe coated with all sorts of gunk on the inside, like moldy clumps of hair and goops of shower gel, and then imagine a tubful of water trying to make its way through that stuff. It’s not going to flow easily. That’s what plumbers have to deal with. Gooped-up arteries (and no, that’s not really the medical term for it) are what you and your doctor have to deal with.

The problem becomes very serious when the hardened artery ruptures, forming a blood clot which then blocks the flow of blood entirely. This sort of blockage is what causes a heart attack if it happens in the heart, or a stroke if it happens in the brain. In fact, if you develop PAD, you’re two to six times more likely to have a heart attack or stroke. Not because the stress of PAD makes you have them, but because the state of the arteries in your peripheries is likely to be the same as the state of your arteries in your heart and brain. A blockage in your peripheral arteries can cause tissue death (gangrene) and may lead to amputation.

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Several companies have started offering consultations with physicians online. They generally treat less serious or chronic conditions, such as the flu, pinkeye, or diabetes. When you decide to sign up for the service, you often pay a yearly or monthly subscription fee, and then a per-visit fee. You create an online account that details your medical history, then you interact with a physician or nurse practitioner through a video chat, phone conversation, or email exchange.

Proponents of these online services tout their convenience and privacy, and suggest that the service would be especially useful to those without healthcare coverage (although online doctor visits may be covered in some health plans).

Unfortunately, there’s really only so much you can do with an online visit. It’s true that you can give your medical history and chat about your symptoms with a doctor, but he or she can’t really examine you, except through video and your voice. When it comes to feet in particular, a podiatrist’s ability to examine your foot is often essential in making an accurate diagnosis. And this long-distance diagnosing may make a physician miss clues to the underlying conditions that may be causing your symptoms. These services may be convenient, but are they really the best healthcare you can receive? For getting your foot injuries and conditions treated, I’d recommend going to your local podiatrist for an in-person evaluation.

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