Foot Pain

Who are the ones who generally become a prey to the foot pain?
1. Obese / overweight
2. Rigid / uncomfortable / improper footwear
3. Standing / walking for a very long time
4. Lack of calcium in the body
5. Lack of Vitamin D
6. Flat foot (Pes planus)
7. Too much arch of the foot (Pes cavus)
8. Diabetics

There are 2 common conditions that may occur in the foot.
1. Calcaneal spur
2. Plantar fascitis

Many health professionals, generally, get confused about these two. But today, let us find out very important differences between these two conditions.

1. Calcaneal spur:
This is a condition where the pain is felt on the medial side (innerside) of the heel. It means that the person is putting more weight on the heel rather than on the foot or the fat pad that should be present under the heel (it's present between the heel bone & the skin) is thin enough (which has to be a little thicker, & that avoids this condition to occur).

The main symptom of this condition is, the person gets the pain early in the morning, rather than after work. As soon as the person gets up he may be unable to put the foot on the floor. This is because as he has been using his foot all through the previous day (strained his heel), when he goes to bed, the muscles & the heel pad swells up & when he gets up in the morning, because of the swelling present (which may not be visible from outside), it may be too painful to touch the floor with his/her swollen heel.

2. Plantar fascitis:
Plantar fascia is a sheath made of 5 muscles present at the bottom of the foot. This fascia originates from the heel bone (calcaneum) & gets inserted into the toe bones. Now, any pain which includes the anterior portion of the bottom of the foot & also the posterior portion of the bottom of the foot is to be considered as the Plantar fascitis.

These people too may suffer from the foot pain early in the mornings & the same principle which i have endorsed above applies to them too.

Now, let us discuss something about the prevention & the treatment.
1. Use soft insoles (if u wear shoes, put a silicon made insole into the shoe), or if you use chappal, then use the chappal which is made of Micro-cellular rubber (MCR)
2. The footwear should be flexible enough (when you try to bend the anterior portion of the footwear, it should be bent easily)
3. The front end of the shoe should be broad
4. Decrease your body weight (if it applies to you)
5. Increase the intake of Calcium in food
6. Get exposed to the sunlight early in the mornings (for 20-40 minutes)
7. Use the arch support if there is a lack of arch in the foot (flat foot)
8. Soft insoles are a MUST for the feet which have too much arch
9. Maintain the diabetes levels
10. Regular exercise is a MUST
11. If the pain has already started, then put some cylindrical structure or hot water bottle underneath the foot & keep on rolling the foot on that cylindrical structure or the hot water bottle. Do it twice a day (early morning & at night before going to bed). Pain relief is assured.
12. Please DO NOT take any injections into foot. These injections contain Hydrocortisones, which stops the pain for 3-6 months depending upon the dosage injected. This may ruin the condition further.
13. In the initial stages, Ultra-sound therapy treats the condition. But if it's in severe stage, Laser therapy (LLLT) works out well.

I hope this article & the above discussion is of some use to you. ALL THE BEST !

Our Mind Vs. Our Behaviour

What is that on which our behaviour depends on?  How does it get influenced by our mind?

Before talking about mind, we should know the difference between Brain & Mind. Is there any difference?

The answer is YES. Brain is physical which has some physical properties like weight, circumference, length, width etc...

But mind is purely psychological or mental. It does not have any physical properties. We cannot touch it. Hence, to understand mind, psychologists have divided our mind into 3 levels. They are:
Sub-conscious, Conscious & Super conscious.

Sub-conscious is also known as Id, conscious as Ego & super conscious as Super Ego.
 
Ego as we know from our movies or serials or from the society is been defined in a wrong way. We are misled. Ego is nothing but....our likes & our dislikes.

Eg.: If i like ice-cream, then that's my ego. If i don't like lizards, that's also my ego.

There is a lot to say about sub-conscious mind. Sub-conscious mind registers every sense that's sensed by our sensory organs.

We have 5 senses: vision, auditory (hearing), taste, smell & touch. All these 5 senses send their input to the brain every now & then. Now, all these senses whatever they send, get stored in sub-conscious mind.

In a common language i would like to say that all these inputs are divided into two groups: Positive & Negative.

Eg: If i taste something which i like it, it get stored as Positive, & if i get pain somewhere in my body, then it gets registered as Negative. Hence, the final outcome depends on the number of negatives & the number of positives stored in our sub-conscious mind.

One more thing about the sub-conscious mind is once any input gets stored in it, it cannot be eliminated till death (exceptions are a few diseases/disorders like Parkinsonism).

Super-ego follows the rules & regulations of the society. It makes us follow the religious, social or customs' path.

Now, our behaviour can be defined as "the final outcome of the above said three (sub-conscious, conscious & super conscious) integrated altogether".

Apart from the above, it also depends upon the person's sensitivity towards the situation.

For eg: Let us say, 5 people are in an elevator & the elevator has stopped at 10th floor because of the power cut or whatever. Now what could be their reaction?

Obviously, all the 5 people will have 5 responses:
The first one may say, why should something like this happen to me everytime?
The second one may say, it's my bad luck. I know it.
The third one may get frightened.
The fourth one may know what to do when the elevator stops abruptly, but he may not respond to the situation.
The fifth one may call the emergency services.

So, even though the situation is same for all the 5 people, their responses (behaviours) are completely different from each other.

Hence, if a person is behaving odd, we should try to understand the cause behind it & if a person knows that he is behaving odd, then it's his duty to find out the cause.

In every step of life, whenever we get confused with our behaviour or with our life itself, we should approach a Psychologist / Psychotherapist / Counsellor.

We have a bad stigma running in our society that whoever approaches a Psychologist / a Psychotherapist / a Psychiatrist, he is MENTAL.

But that's not true. Many times we may get confused & may not be able to understand others / ourselves properly. This happens because of our busy schedules, mechanical life, targets to reach, lack of time, improper diet pattern, lack of exercise, politics in our daily life style, competition & what not?!

Let us discuss game of mind in the next part (Our Mind Vs. Our Behaviour - II).

Friends, please feel free to put down your opinions in my blog. This would help me & encourage me to share many more issues with you people.

Thank You.....