A common procedure for correction of a hammertoe--a contracted digit that often rubs in the shoe causing painful corns--is to take out part of the bent knuckle re-shaping it so the toe will lie flat.  A external pin has been commonly used to stabilize the toe while scar tissue makes the joint relatively stiff. This meant protecting a pin sticking out of the toe, usually bent and capped, for 3-8 weeks. Recently, a number of internal absorbable and non-absorbable pins have been developed to avoid the pins stcking out of the toes. For more information, please contact our office.

I saw the movie, "The Long Walk" last night. It was hard to fathom one escaping from a Siberian Gulag prison and walking through the cold Russian forests, Mongolian Gobi desert, Tibet and the Himalayans, finding freedom in northern India. 4000 miles of walking over a year! This story has been challenged (see Wikepedia link). There were other stories of escapees from the tortuous Siberian prisons making their way to freedom. This occurred during Stalin's regime in the earlier part of World War II. A lot of sore and swollen feet. The movie is OK for the geography and history lesson, the National Geographic helped sponsor it.

Want to lessen your chance of sports injury? Consider racewalking over running. There is a Kansas City organization always open to new members: the Heartland Racewalkers. They meet weekly on Saturday mornings at the Health Plus gym at 435 and Roe. Running puts more stress on the joints because all your weight (with momentum) lands on one leg. Racewalking requires both feet to be on the ground thus decreasing the force on the joints. For more information check their website: www.heartlandracewalkers.com .

Watching my four year granddaughter in ballet brought the question, is one foot type better than another. The great toe can be longer or shorter than the second. The former is an Egyptian foot and the Greek foot presents with a longer second toe. Much of this is in reference to statues of antiquity where Egyptian statues have a longer Great toe, and more realistic Greek statues had the higher arch, and longer second toe. Back to ballet, neither foot type is preferred. After ten, when one goes up "on point", having three toes of equal length is optimal to evenly distribute the pressure. 

How do we prevent ingrown nails? You're told to cut the nail staight accross and not too short. That's because ONE of the causes is cutting the edge of the nail incompletely when trying to "round" the corners. There are other reasons why we get ingown nails, however. So then, we try to stuff cotton under the ingowing nail. Why cause more pressure? I tell kids and adults of the "cotton" school, I'm of the school of "vaseline". OK, swipe a miniscule amount of vaseline along the edge of the nail to "lubricate" and soften the groove, thereby allowing the nail edge to grow out and not dig into the flesh. Before "swiping", soaking the foot and pulling the edge back helps. For more information, please contact our office.