When assessing your body’s health, have you ever paused to give thought to your feet? It’s not a body part most people are inclined to remembering when it comes to medical assessments, and as a result, feet rarely get the medical attention they deserve. Some argue that they are among the hardiest parts of the body, and while that is certainly true, it hardly means that they can stay in excellent condition without a “tune-up” every now and then.
Feet do a lot of work, yet they rarely get a lot of consideration. Do you know how many steps you take in a lifetime?
The Illinois Podiatric Medical Association estimates the length or distance covered by an average person’s feet in a lifetime to be 115,000 miles. That would mean that most of us work our feet enough in our lives to walk four times around the circumference of the Earth. And it’s not even just our weight that they carry on the way—there’s the weight of the things we have on us to consider, as well as the varying degrees of stress that they experience based on load distribution. Sometimes, when you are running, for instance, you are actually putting up to four times your weight on your feet with each step, as opposed to just your flat weight. That’s a lot of work for a part of us that gets so little medical attention that most do not even know what the field of medicine specializing in feet is called.
There are many reasons one should visit a podiatrist—preferably a podiatrist near one’s location, wherever that may be. What’s great about technology nowadays is that a person can get a lot of information from the Internet without having to leave the house. In this case, patients can go online to look for healthcare providers within the neighborhood.
First off, feet actually do wear down over time. A lot of people are actually suffering from medium grade plantar fasciitis, for instance, but are simply unaware that this is the name for the condition causing their heels to hurt constantly. Contrary to what most people think, feet are not supposed to hurt. It is never normal for your feet to be in pain, so chronic or even temporary foot pains need the attention of a podiatrist straightaway.
Visiting a podiatrist can be the solution for a lot of aches afflicting your feet, which would lead to improved quality of life. Since it is almost impossible to stay off your feet constantly, especially if you wish to lead an active, healthy life, you have to pay attention to their well-being. Exercise and many other normal activities—even just going to the mall, for example—can become more difficult with sore feet, which shows you how crucial the feet are to overall health.
Having healthy feet can prevent a lot of problems for many people. People with damaged feet are more likely to be literally off-balance, and also more likely to suffer from falls or accidents. Feet can also suffer regularly from issues like plantar warts or fungi—and while feet do sweat, it is not normal for them to smell. It can be socially crippling in a lot of ways to be unable to rely on your feet or to be afraid to slip off your shoes for fear of odor coming out. Hence, good foot care and medical attention should never be underestimated when one wishes to walk down the road of a healthy body and a healthy life.
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