Foot Problems: Tips for Treatment and Care

“My feet are a size 10,” says Athena Tsembelis, 40. “For a long time, they were 8 1/2, then they started swelling from all the years I’ve spent trying to stuff them into shoes made for Cinderella. I wanted to be the belle of the ball and wear dainty glass slippers, so I continued to buy shoes that were too narrow, too high and too much money.”

Tsembelis’s choice of shoes cost her more than money: she eventually needed surgery to remove a painful bunion from her left foot. She may need surgery for her other foot as well.

It’s not just Cinderella wannabes whose feet are aching. Men suffer, too. For example, Noah Tannen, 33, recalls a painful plantar wart that grew to the size of a dollar coin.

 “I’m not sure if it was caused by skiing in rental boots or playing Ultimate Frisbee in wet sneakers one winter,” he says. But he had to have it frozen and shaved off.

Around 40% of Australians will experience some form of foot problem in their lifetime, ranging from relatively minor disorders, such as ingrowing toe nails, to severe feet deformities, according to the Australian Podiatry Association. And overweight men and women put added strain on their feet simply by walking. What’s worse, pain that starts with the feet may not end there. “Your feet to your knees to your hips to your back to your neck – it’s all part of the same thing,” says Dr

Johanna Youner, a podiatric surgeon, who warns that high heels, for instance, can throw the spine out of alignment. She adds that thongs or flat shoes that don’t offer arch support can cause knee pain, because “your knees will sag inward, your hips will be problematic and other parts of your body will not be in great alignment”. And that can lead to even more serious orthopaedic problems later on.

So how you treat your feet can mean the difference between tripping the light fantastic and chronic conditions that require more than an over-the-counter remedy.

In style, out of step

Some people care more about how a shoe makes them look than how it makes their body feel. In fact, 42% of women say they’d wear shoes that are uncomfortable in order to look more stylish, says an American Podiatric Medical Association study.

Even Dr Youner admits that high heels not only make a woman look taller and thinner, “they stick out your chest, make your butt stick out, they make you look sexier, curvier and slimmer”. But, she warns, “the downsides are huge”. After all, “it’s nice to be able to walk”.