Taking proper foot care is important, but it is easy to forget that most of your activities are performed while standing upright, so your feet bear the brunt of most of them. When you ignore your feet over time pictures of toenail fungus, they can develop serious problems such as chronic pain, which prevents you from enjoying your normal activities. A visit to the podiatrist for routine foot care can provide many benefits beyond treating foot pain after an injury.
Lifestyle habits often cause foot problems, and you may do things that eventually lead to chronic pain if you do things every day. Wearing high heels, for example, can result in heel and arch pain. In contrast, poor posture may cause your weight to be distributed unevenly across your feet pictures of toenail fungus. Poor posture, obesity, and even wrongly clipping your toenails can all contribute to foot problems that need to be treated.
A podiatrist asks questions about your lifestyle during routine appointments that prevent problems such as hammertoes from developing. The best way to correct poor habits before they cause damage is to be proactive. This is also a good time to ask your foot care questions.
You are more likely to suffer from serious foot problems if you have certain health conditions. For example, diabetes can cause dangerous infections and nerve damage, which need aggressive treatment if left untreated. To protect your mobility, diabetic wound care is crucial. Arthritis also affects the ankle and foot. To manage pain and ease joint stiffness, receiving proper care early on is important. You can use gentle stretches to ease joint stiffness while managing the painful condition.
An ingrown toenail, for example, can disrupt your normal exercise routine, preventing you from exercising regularly. It is also possible to experience sudden pain during a workout and not know why it occurred. A podiatrist is the best person to find out exactly what’s wrong with your foot because it is a complex system of ligaments, joints, and nerves. Afterwards, you can perform rehabilitative exercises and pain management techniques to recover and return to play.
Because your shoes create a dark and damp environment that allows bacteria, fungi, and viruses to flourish, your foot’s skin is highly susceptible to several common infections. The symptoms of a foot infection can include redness around your toes, warts on your soles, or itchiness. You can treat all of these conditions during your routine foot care appointments. Infections caused by fungal growth can be treated as well.