It all sounds so sensible, possible, and doable – in fact almost a no-brainer!

But what do each of us do about it?

Do I really and truly try to lower my blood pressure with a healthy diet and lifestyle plan which aims to reduce my risk of cardiovascular disease, including having a fatal heart attack or stroke? Do I make it a priority to:

• do regular physical exercise – 30 minutes per day of brisk walking
• sit less
• lose excess body fat for a healthy body weight,
• reduce my alcohol intake,
• quit smoking and
• minimise physical and emotional stress by relaxing and thinking positively.

Are my shoes fit for the activities of a healthy lifestyle plan?

• shoes for my morning walk – lace up or velcro closing joggers
• getting to work and home or talking a walk at lunchtime shoes – are these the joggers or a fully enclosed day walking shoes? Do you change in and out of your shoes for your walking throughout the day?
• your work shoes?
  • the dressier ones
    • are they supportive, cushioned, really comfortable for all day effective work – how are they on your toes – corns, callous, blisters, claw toes, hammer
      toes, bunions, hallux valgus? What are you doing to your feet in the shoes
      you think you need to wear to work?
    • the height of your heels – how are they on your achilles tendon and your met heads, your bunions and the toe nails – ouch the pain of an ingrown toe nail and the podiatry surgery sometimes
      required!
  • the work boots
    • do they have the correct length width and depth or are you wearing them long so the steel caps don’t hurt your toes, or do you take them off to have sore red marks on your feet?

    
    

    • those elastic sided boots – are the elastics all stretched out followed by the leather sitting somewhere around your ankle – the effect being your feet flapping about in your shoes, with your carrying your shoes rather than your wearing them leaving you feeling so so tired feet up!
• the relaxing footwear once the day is done? – barefeet, thongs, scuffs, mocs, uggs? Foot covering options can be warm and cosy once the work is done! Before this is the foot appropriate for the activity. Thongs are not supportive and invariably insufficient protection in the kitchen cooking dinner, The mocs or uggs can be hazardous doing what has to be done caring for the members of the household with the range of tasks to be done as part of the “second shift.”

As part of checking that your shoes are ready and fit for the activities of a healthy lifestyle plan, at Happy Feet Pedorthics we recommend you look at each pair and make condition report to yourself – perhaps there may need to be maintenance:

• your heels – are they run down and in need of re-balancing and re-heeling?
  • those dressier ones can be treacherous at the heel. Once run down at the rubber and into the plastic part, the wear and the slip factors increase exponentially! I hear the cry – my back hurts! The sore back often begins at the feet with poor footwear and or footwear worn poorly!
• the back linings – have they worn through and is there a need to re-line these? Are you getting blisters at the back or your heels?
• the soles of the shoes themselves – are you in need of a re-sole. Balance through heel to sole pitch is the bottom of good alignment for your whole body
• finally on comfort side of your foot – the shoe inner or orthotic – is there need for replacement or maintenance? Materials have varying rates of bottoming out which means:
  • they become thinner and harder to the bottom of the foot
  • the shoe looser and
  • the foot moving to the front on the shoe when walking, leading to damage to the toes!

So give yourself a good start to bring your footwear to Happy Feet Pedorthics for a final health check and repair. We believe in the motto “repair and save” and we recommend “against spending good money after bad”

The boots in the series to the right were brought in by a person referred to us by a chiropractor for a heel raise. In our view at Happy Feet Pedorthics the footwear was all wrong! We gave our client some education about his work footwear, personal footwear, and how to apply removable and permanent heel raises to the most effect for his back. The client did go away with a removable heel

raise and will be back for some new shoes. At Happy Feet Pedorthics we are building a team approach with the client and the referring chiropractor.

Give sore feet the boot with a healthy life style plan, including a 30 minute brisk walk each day!

Clare Nelson
C Ped CM AU