podiatry for diabetics - how it can help

Posted on: 27 August 2015

If you suffer from chronic ankle and calf pain and wear high-heeled boots all the time, keep reading. Although there's a lot of information about the dangers of wearing high-heeled sandals, dress shoes and stilettos for your feet and back, you might not hear too much about boots. High-heeled boots place a great deal of stress on your lower body. You develop pain and inflammation in your bones, joints and soft tissues because of the stress. The chronic pain you experience now can actually affect your overall health when you're older. Before you slip on your fashionable high-heeled boots one more time, check out the problems they cause in your ankles and what you can do to solve them.

Why Do High-Heeled Boots Cause Ankle and Calf Pain?

High-heeled boots affect your feet the same way as other types of heeled footwear do. They force the bones, joints, ligaments, and tendons of your feet to slide or press forward when you walk or stand. These actions also overextend and overstress the tissues of your feet, which places them in an unnatural position. However, high-heeled boots can create additional stress and pressure in your ankles and calves.

Because boots cover your feet and ankles completely, they have the ability to break, pull, rip, or tear multiple bones and tissues at once. If your boots extend to your calves, knees or thighs, they can damage the tissues in these lower body regions as well. 

The pain you feel in your ankles and calves come from a number of things, including nerve pain. Each leg contains a large network of nerves that create sensation and feeling in it, including the sciatic nerve and the nerves that extend or branch from it. The sciatic nerve begins in your lower back, separates in your hips, extends down to the backs of your calves, and ends at your ankles.

Sciatica pain usually develops when the nerves in your lower back, hips and thigh become pinched or damaged. If you wear boots that are too tight or snug around calves, you suppress the sciatic nerve branch inside them.

The suppressed nerve branch can't relay sensations to the smaller nerves in your ankles. As a result, you develop an achy feeling your ankles and feet. The ache may be dull, sharp or both, depending on how blocked the nerves are in your ankles. Nerve damage in your ankles and calves may lead to foot drop.

What's Foot Drop?

Foot drop develops from several things, including nerve damage. If the sciatic nerve branches in your calves and ankles continue to experience issues, they can become inflamed or damaged. The inflammation eventually affects how you move or flex your ankles.

For instance, you have problems moving your ankles back and forth, especially when you take off your high-heeled boots. The inability to move your ankles is generally caused by fluid buildup or swelling. Fluid forms between the small joints that connect your ankle bones to the soles of your feet. 

Your feet drop or flop downward instead of stay properly aligned with your ankles. You lose sensation in your toes from the nerve damage. If this happens, you may not notice when blisters form on your feet. The friction caused by your tight boots may open up the blisters and expose them to bacteria and infection.

Because you can't walk on your feet properly, you must place all the weight of your body on your heels and calves to stay upright. Eventually, the muscles in your calves and heels cramp from overuse and tension.

Massaging your sore and injured ankles, calves and feet may not help, especially if you continue to wear your boots. It's important that you see a podiatrist for care and find other forms of fashionable boots to wear.

How Can You Protect Your Ankles and Still Wear Fashionable Boots?

A podiatrist offers a number of treatments for foot drop, ankle pain and calf inflammations. For instance, the doctor may prescribe orthotic cushions for your feet. The cushions alleviate pressure on the soft and hard tissues of your lower body. 

Pain medication may be an option for you. However, physical therapy and surgery to repair the damage in your lower extremities are two good options your podiatrist may suggest if pain medication doesn't improve your condition.

You may exchange your high-heeled boots for flat-heeled boots that fit your calves, ankles and feet correctly. Avoid boots that hug your lower leg too snuggly or too loosely. It's a good idea that you have your calves, ankles and feet measured by a podiatrist before you purchase new boots.

If you need more information on how to protect or treat your injured ankles and calves, contact your podiatrist today. You can find a podiatrist by visiting a site like http://www.yourfootdocs.com.