It is difficult to think that there was once a time when people just walked around aimlessly with their bare feet, regardless of what the terrain or temperature was like. These days, you’d fight to make it down the street without passing many shoe shops, boasting plenty of designer strappy heels, on-trend sneakers and seasonal specials.
Though your health may not be the very first thing to spring into your mind while you peruse the office sales, scroll endlessly through the most recent ASOS sale or queue for hours to get a set of Yeezys, the shoes we wear are now fundamental to our everyday wellbeing. Ergonomically designed sneakers, or footwear which does not fit correctly, can give rise to quite a few of brief and long-term health issues that affect different components of our whole body, therefore it is essential to be clued up on what you are putting on your own feet.
Michael Ratcliffe, Podiatrist in Carnation Footcare, states that the three major purposes of shoes would be to shield our toes, empower us to walk where we want and supply a sense of relief and relaxation once we are on our toes for long periods of time. Whether you are coaching a soccer team on the field all afternoon or are in the business of commercial property sales, then you need to have the correct footwear on all day.
Short-term problems
Ill-fitting shoes can lead to damage to your feet almost instantly. A number of the more common conditions include:
Corns
Corns are a ‘plug’ of tough, dead skin which exist within a bony prominence, like a joint. They are frequently brought on by prolonged pressure into the particular area, usually from poorly fitting footwear.
It normally includes a punctate, discrete form and can be extremely painful when pressure is put on the area. Corns can be difficult or soft (and, where they exist between the feet, moist) and may contain blood vessels or nerve fibres. Long-standing corns may be firmly connected to deeper soft tissues, making them hard to fully eliminate.
Shoes which are overly loose may allow your foot to slip and rub, or styles that put excessive strain on a particular section of the foot will be the most likely contenders to trigger corns.
Nail issues
Nail and fungal infections are really common in the United Kingdom, having an estimated 16 percent of all Europeans believed to be afflicted by some kind of infection. Ingrown toenails, form if the sides of the nail pierce the surrounding epidermis, are a nuisance and may cause pain. Wearing socks and shoes which don’t fit correctly and are overly tight in areas around the toe pressure to the surfaces of the feet and may push the skin to the nail plate. Furthermore, cutting your toenails erroneously (neither directly across nor at a gentle curve) and cutting down the sides of your nail may put your toe in danger of an ingrown toenail.
Furthermore, fungal toenail infections are not just gruesome in causing discolouration and brittleness of the nail, however, they are also able to affect out self-esteem and in rare cases can lead to additional complications where the infection is spread. Trauma, possibly one incident or repeated minor episodes (due to tight footwear), may lift the nail in the nail bed giving ordinary skin home organisms a portal of entry to the nail bed and thicker base of the nail plate at the place where they can flourish.
Preventing the use of tight hosiery and footwear, which could harm the nail via meticulous injury and generate a moist environment where the fungal spores may flourish, can assist in preventing fungal toenail infections.
Athlete’s foot
Athlete’s foot is brought on by a dermatophyte, a bacterial species residing on the epidermis. It triggers intense itching, inflammation and flaking of the skin, also is concurrently unsightly, embarrassing and extremely infectious. This illness impacts the moist and sweaty regions of the foot, especially between the feet and the toe webbing spots (particularly in tight-fitting shoes which attract the feet in near proximity to each other for the length of wearing these shoes) and frequently beneath the inner arch of the foot.
This illness can spread and be caught while walking barefoot in a place where others have also not worn shoes. Great foot hygiene and application of an antifungal lotion will help, it’s very important to deal with this illness before it spreads into your toenails.
Taking preventative Measures
Finding the correct preventive measures for long-term damage to your feet is like looking through commercial real estate listings, there are a lot and only a few will apply to you. The biggest preventative measure is to simply be more conscious of the footwear that you purchase, and how many times you wear a specific style is important. Some things you should be looking out for if treating yourself to a brand new pair of sneakers include:
- Make sure there’s enough space at the front of your sneakers (the ‘toe box’) to wiggle your feet freely. If the shoe would be to tight here then you place yourself in danger of compression numbness and lesions.
- Ideally, your shoes need to have a fastening of some type, which let you adjust the fit of your shoe if needed.
- The top region of the shoe needs to be made from natural substances for overall flexibility, comfort and durability.
- Cushioning within the shoe is excellent for comfort as well as to decrease the jolting effect when landing on your heels and moving off from the balls of your toes whilst walking.
- When you buy shoes online make sure they fit correctly, if not simply return or exchange them. It may be of hassle now but it will save you in the long run.