Fragile Foot Skin Fascinates

A blog post about foot skin?!  

The furthest thing from your mind, hopefully.

But worthy of a quick read for more than a few reasons.

First, our feet themselves. They literally carry us day in and day out, enough to walk around the planet 4 times in our lives. They can endure tons (yes, tons) of force over the course of the day. And our feet take - on average - 10,000 steps per day. They are the hardest working part of our body, unless you are a theoretical physicist or something...

Now the skin. The skin on our the bottom of our feet contains the highest concentration of sweat glands on our bodies by far. And yet it has no sebaceous (oil) glands. Plus, our feet have an extra layer of skin cells called the lucidum that make the thickness of the plantar or skin on the bottoms of our feet almost 4mm thick... almost half a centimeter!

With all that, what could be "fragile" in these multi-jointed marvels of biology?

The thing to remember about feet is that they are each a delicate system that is quite finely tuned. Extra strain, repetitive stress or trauma to any one part can cause unhealthy "ripples" through the foot organs (skin and bones) and myriad of tissues. Speaking of parts, there are over over 20 muscles and bones involved in each foot and over 100 ligaments, with vessels, nerves and other sensors throughout! And let's not forget the foot skin. All that moisture without being "self-oiling" leads to dryness, callusing and cracking if not looked after and protected. And can get much, much worse if the system is being stressed, something of particular concern to anyone who is diabetic.

By the time people see a certified pedorthist such as myself, one or both foot systems are often causing problems up the closed kinetic chain through the legs, knees and thighs, even up to the lower back or lumbar region. 

Simply put, if you have persistent pain in your feet, something is wrong.

See your physician. Then come see your friendly neighborhood pedorthist....

“Enjoy Your Feet!”

Rodney Ashfield, BA, Cert. Rehab.
Certified Pedorthist (Canada)
Certified Pedorthic Tech.

P.S.
I first wrote this for my "Linked in" page. A good fit here, too...
And we all know how important a good fit is. ;-)