Redlands Podiatry Clinic

While our social and sporting activities are temporarily off the agenda due to the coronavirus pandemic, there’s never been a better time for solitary pursuits like running and walking in the great outdoors.

Keeping active will also help your physical and mental health during these trying times.

Make sure your shoes are up to the job, otherwise running and walking may actually have a negative impact on your entire body – not just your feet!

Common questions include: Do I need professional shoe fitting? How often should I replace my running shoes? And which brands are the best?

Do I Need New Running Shoes?

Before you lace up your old faithful running shoes, consider if they are actually up to the task.

The Upper: Is the stitching coming apart? Are there any holes, or are your toes sticking out? Does the shape of the shoe look normal, or does it lean to one side (whether in or out)?

The Outer Sole: This is the treadlike layer on the bottom of the shoe, primarily used for grip and durability. Again, check for holes and signs of uneven wear.

The Mid Sole: The most important area of your running shoe however, is the part you can’t really see – the mid sole, which is usually made of EVA foam. Brands tend to use different names for this important layer: ASICS call it gel; Nike call it air; Brooks call it hydroflow – but essentially they all do the same thing.

The primary function of the mid sole is to absorb the shock of the foot as it strikes the ground; it is also designed to control the inward roll of the foot (or pronation as your local podiatrist is likely to call it). Pronation has been linked to conditions such as shin splints, kneecap problems, hip and lower back pain.

Unfortunately, the mid sole foam breaks down over time – as you clock up mileage, it becomes thinner and stiffer, losing its ability to control shock and the mechanics of your foot.

On the outside of your running shoe, the mid sole may be a different colour or pattern. If you notice any creasing, it may be time for a replacement.

Another way to test the condition of your mid sole, is how your shoes feel when you wear them. If you are running on the road or on gravel, and can feel that surface under your feet, the mid sole is tiring or has collapsed.

As a general rule, your local podiatrist will recommend that if you exercise regularly, you should look at replacing your running shoes on an annual basis.

What to Look for in Running Shoes

Tried and Tested: As with many things in life, tried and tested is best. If you have a brand that you are comfortable in, that you have been walking and running in without problems, then stick to it. Don’t change your running shoe because somebody in a shoe store or a certain brand is promoting something different.

Find an Assistant Familiar with your Sport: When you walk into a shoe store, try to find an assistant with relative knowledge. If you’re a runner, try to find a sales assistant who also likes to run. If you are a tennis or netball player – do they play tennis or netball?

Professional Shoe Fitting: Of course you won’t always be able to find help from somebody experienced in the same sport. However, you should make sure that your assistant measures the length and width of your feet with a Brannock, to get a truly professional shoe fitting.

Try Different Brands: Different brands cater for different foot dimensions, so again don’t get caught up in trends or marketing hype. Try on two or three pairs of shoes that offer the same features, and see which ones you think feel best, and most comfortable, under your feet.

If you are having problems with finding the right running shoe, your local podiatrist can help by looking into your specific needs and issues.

In the Redlands, Trevor Lane Podiatry is your local podiatrist, offering professional shoe fitting and footwear. Call us today on 3207 4736 for personal assistance with what to look for in running shoes.

It’s almost back-to-school time and that means sorting out uniforms, book lists, labels and kids school shoes.

Perhaps you have never thought of talking to your local podiatrist about school shoes – yet we are the experts in all things foot care!

As your local family podiatrist clinic, we can help answer your questions, such as:

• Why are good school shoes so important?
• Are leather school shoes better?
• Should we choose velcro fastening or lace up school shoes?
• What shoe will best suit a wide foot?
• Does my child need orthotics?

In addition to providing valuable advice, at Trevor Lane Podiatry we offer a range of quality school shoes – for the littlest preppie, right through to the adult sizes needed by the end of high school – as well as a professional fitting service.

We recommend parents check their kids’ school shoes in early to mid January, as there can be a bit of a rush at the end of January and stocks can run low.

Why are good school shoes so important?

As a parent myself, I’m quite particular about the features I want in my kids school shoes! So you can be assured of quality, stability and support in the range we offer. Here are just some of the reasons why good school shoes are so important:

• Your child’s feet can grow up to 17 sizes in the first 11 or 12 years – expertly fitted school shoes allow for correct bone and muscle development, preventing potential problems down the track.
• Poorly fitting school shoes can actually cause damage, or increase the risk of injury such as a sprained ankle.
• A quarter of the bones in your child’s body are located in their foot – they deserve to be looked after!
• Your child will be wearing their school shoes for at least 30 hours a week.
• School shoes aren’t just for studying! You want to be sure your child has a good quality, supportive shoe for playing and running around.

Professional Fitting for Kids School Shoes

It is worth visiting our Redlands podiatry clinic to check your kids’ school shoes before the new school year begins. Here are just a few reasons why:

• We are the foot doctors! Our podiatrists have trained for many years and are fully qualified foot care professionals. Unlike shop assistants, with only a brief training session under their belts – we are the experts.
• A podiatrist can pick up any potential problems or foot conditions in your child, and ensure that they are fitted with the best school shoes for their individual needs.
• Our professional shoe fitting service includes measuring the length, width, and arch length of your child’s foot, as well as gait scan analysis to check for any abnormal foot function.
• Feet aren’t always the same size! If your child has feet of a different length or width – we can adjust the shoe precisely to each foot.

In short, not only do you get great, professional service, you can be confident we stock only the best school shoes, with full money back guarantees. We also make a point of stocking shoes with are suitable for kids orthotics.

School Shoes Brands

We stock Clarks, Ecco, and also school sports shoes, and can recommend the best for your child:

• Clarks: Clarks have a great reputation. Their shoes consist of a good quality rubber sole and leather upper, and are built to offer maximum stability to support your child’s knees and back. Clarks caters for children with wide feet, with school shoes made up to F, G and H widths.
• Ecco: This European brand offers very high quality in kids school shoes. They are a little more expensive, but I find they are particularly suitable for the senior years, eg students in years 11 and 12 that have finished growing. Older students find that they will get at least 2 years out of these shoes. Ecco school shoes are available predominantly in one width, but it’s a very generous sizing, around a B or C.
• School Sports Shoes: Our school sports shoes range includes Orthaheels in white and black, and Saucony, which also caters for medium and wide feet.

At our Redlands podiatry clinic, we offer foot care for the whole family – and would love to help with advice and professional fitting for kids school shoes. Call us today on 3207 4736.

Think only elderly people visit a podiatrist? Think again! We are proud to be a family podiatry centre, providing the very best in foot care for newborns right through to seniors.

Baby Foot Care

From birth up until two years of age, babies may benefit from podiatric treatment for:

• Hip Dysplasia – as discussed in our previous blog post “Podiatry and Back Problems“, any condition which affects the hips, is also likely to impact on the knees and lower limbs.
• Ingrown Toenails – surprisingly, babies often suffer from ingrown toenails, which parents are anxious about trimming or treating.
• In Toeing or “pigeon toe” – this is quite common in infants and is a leftover from their time in the womb, where (in most cases) the left foot curls over the right. Although it usually resolves on its own, as a parent you can promote correct alignment by encouraging your child to sit cross legged, rather than kneeling with their lower legs kicked out in a “W” pattern.

Podiatrist for Kids

Parents often seek out a podiatrist for their kids if they notice knock knees, or bowing of the legs, however there is no need to be alarmed – this is a normal developmental stage in children before the age of 11.

Complaints about “growing pains” are often heard from kids in this age group. Again, it’s usually nothing to worry about – it’s simply a matter of the bones growing longer and faster than the child’s musculature system, and therefore causing irritation. Typically it seems to affect the more active youngsters, causing heel pain (referred to as “severs”), or up to the area just below the knee.

If you do have any concerns about your child’s lower limb development, please see your local podiatrist, as it is usually easy to pick up and treat any abnormalities before growth is completed.

Sports Podiatry

As a family podiatry centre, a lot of our work is in the assessment and treating of common sports injuries – including foot fractures, sprained ankles, netball injuries, etc – in both children and adults. You’ll find we have a special interest in sports podiatry.

Senior Foot Care

As we age, it becomes more difficult to care for our own feet and toenails, due to a combination of factors:

• we are no longer easily able to bend to reach our feet;
• our nails thicken and become harder to trim;
• and our close up vision deteriorates.

Added to this, our risk of wounds and infection increases, as:

• the skin becoming thinner and more susceptible to bruises and cuts;
• auto immune disorders such as diabetes, rheumatoids, lupus and sclerodermas become more common;
• we are more likely to be taking blood thinning medication.

For all of these reasons, seniors are much more likely to need the services of a podiatrist.

Young families, seniors, couples, singles – if you live in the Redlands, Trevor Lane Podiatry is your local family podiatry centre.

If there’s one thing we know here at our Redlands podiatry clinic, it’s feet – and we’ve picked up a lot of fascinating foot facts along the way!

These Feet are Made for Walking

Just think – if a person walks the recommended 10 000 steps per day from their first birthday up to the age of 70 – that adds up to over 25 million steps in their lifetime!

According to one website, the average person will walk over 128,000 km over the course of their life, the equivalent of three laps around the earth’s circumference.

Our early years are a time of incredible growth and development for our feet. For example, our toes start to form in the third or fourth month of gestation; and our feet double in length between birth and when we reach our fourth birthday!

I’ve previously written about how feet develop and when they stop growing, so today I thought I’d share a selection of both weird and wonderful foot facts.

10 Fascinating Foot Facts

1 – Bony Feet: Considering how small your feet are in comparison to your total body, you may be surprised to learn that fully a quarter of all the bones in your body are in your feet.

2 – A Feat of Engineering: Each foot has 26 bones, 33 joints, 107 ligaments and 19 muscles. No wonder Leonardo da Vinci described the foot as ‘the greatest engineering device in the world’!

3 – Built for Strength: The Achilles tendon is the strongest tendon in the body.

4 – Through Thick and Thin: One of the reasons your feet can go the distance, is because the thickest skin is found on the soles of your feet (and the palms of your hands).

5 – Ticklish Tootsies? It could be because there are 8,000 nerves in your feet.

6 – Don’t Sweat It: With 250 000 sweat glands in each foot, not surprisingly we can sweat up to a cup per day through our feet alone!

7 – Famous Feet: Is your second toe longer than your big toe? Don’t panic, you’re not alone – the Statue of Liberty is the same! This is known as Morton’s syndrome or Morton’s toe, and is also called Greek toe, because it is commonly seen in the statues of ancient Greece.

8 – Feet ‘Grow’ in Adulthood: It’s estimated that most people over the age of 40, gain half a shoe size every 10 years or so.

9 – Slipping into Sleep: Wearing socks to bed to keep your feet warm, makes it easier for you to fall asleep (or so says America’s national sleep foundation).

10 – Going Up! And finally, you’ve probably heard that human beings are getting taller with each generation; well, it seems feet are getting bigger too. America’s National Shoe Retailers Association says both men and women have gone up a full shoe size in the last 30 years.

When you consider their intricate design, many moving parts, and just how much we rely on them, no wonder things can – and do – go wrong with our feet, with one in 5 Australians suffering from foot pain.

Why Visit a Podiatry Clinic

Unfortunately many people simply don’t realise that a podiatry clinic like ours, exists solely (excuse the pun!) to help with problems affecting the feet and lower limbs and have never visited a podiatrist.

The most common foot complaint? Arch or heel pain, which affects nearly half of all Australians at some point in their lifetime.

Runners also make up a fair proportion of the clientele at any podiatry clinic, probably due to the following statistics about running injuries:

• 42% of running injuries are to the knee;
• 17% to the foot/ankle;
• and 13% to the lower leg.

So next time your tootsies are tender, remember: a podiatry clinic (like Trevor Lane Podiatry), is where you will find expert help for your foot care problems.

Transport and Delivery Directory

Because Foot Health Week falls in October each year – this year it’s from Monday the 15^th to Friday the 21^st of October –  at Trevor Lane Podiatry, we like to think of the whole month as “Foot Health Awareness Month”.

As part of our commitment to providing you with the very best foot care, we regularly share tips here on our podiatry blog, on everything from preventing and treating common sports injuries, to what to look for in kids’ school shoes.

Foot Health Fact Sheets

Another great source of information is the Australian Podiatry Association website, which has a number of foot health fact sheets designed to not only help you look after your feet, but also explain exactly how a podiatrist can help. According to the Association, only a fraction of people suffering from sore feet actually seek treatment, which means many Australians could be suffering needlessly.

At time of writing, there are nine Fact Sheets available:

1. When to See a Podiatrist: Podiatrists are university-trained to be foot care experts and can help with symptoms and issues affecting the lower limbs and feet.
2. Looking after Ageing Feet: After many years of use and often abuse (eg wearing ill fitting shoes and high heels), foot pain and problems may develop – discover tips to help keep you active and mobile.
3. Corns and Calluses: Find out how they develop, how to prevent them, and how to treat them.
4. Diabetes and Your Feet: Discover why having diabetes increases your risk of foot problems and infections, and the signs and symptoms to look for (you may also like to take a look at our blog post, How a Podiatrist can help a Diabetic).
5. Footwear Health Check: A guide on what to look for when buying new shoes.
6. Fungal & Nail Infections: Learn how to prevent and treat the nasties that can cause infections in your feet and toe nails.
7. Gait Analysis: By assessing the way you walk, a podiatrist can diagnose any problems and prescribe treatment to prevent and minimise pain and risk of injury. You can also find out more in our article on Digital Gait Scan Analysis.
8. Incorrectly Fitted Shoes: Ill fitting shoes can be the reason behind foot pain and problems – could your shoes be doing you damage?
9. Pain: Pain is your body’s way of alerting you to the fact that something is not right. What is your foot and/or lower limb pain trying to tell you?

Each fact sheet also includes a handy checklist – if you tick one or more of the boxes on the checklist, the Australian Podiatry Association urges you to make an appointment with your local podiatrist as soon as possible.

To read and download the fact sheets, head to: https://www.podiatry.org.au/foot-health-resources/foot-health-fact-sheets.