What Is Chilblains?

If your toes are looking red, puffy, or swollen, it does not necessarily mean that you have frostbite or trenchfoot.
What you may have is called chilblains, also known as pernio and perniosis. Chilblains are a tissue injury that happens when a person is exposed to cold and humidity. The cold causes damage to the capillary beds in the skin, which in turn causes inflammation, blisters, redness, and itching. Typically these acral ulcers (ulcers that affect the extremities) are not painful at first but can become painful.
Chilblains is usually idiopathic, but can also be a manifestation of a more serious medical condition. Those with a history of chilblains may have a connective tissue disease. In rare cases, chilblains, along with fevers and severe neurologic disease, in infants is a sign of Aicardi-Goutieres syndrome.
Signs of chilblains include blistering of the affected area, burning and itching sensation in the affected toe, dermatitis, digital ulceration, erythemia (blanchable redness of the skin), pain in affected area, and skin discoloration, from red to blue.
If seen by a podiatrist immediately, chilblains will heal within seven to 14 days. If left untreated, however, there is a risk of complication, including skin ulceration, cracked or broken skin, and infections.
Treatment for chilblains is non-invasive and typically involves keeping the area warm, applying a topical steroid cream, and even taking vitamin D and calcium supplements.
To prevent chilblains from recurring, make sure that when it is cold outside, you are dressed properly, with socks and enclosed shoes. Avoid tight fitting socks and shoes, which constrict the blood vessels. If you are susceptible to the cold, try to avoid going outside. When coming back in from outdoors, expose your feet gradually to the heat. Some people find putting wool between the toes improves their circulation, as does exercise.
If you believe have a foot problem and do not currently see a podiatrist, call one of our six locations to make an appointment.
Connecticut Foot Care Centers
Podiatrists in CT
Visit our website, like our page on Facebook, and follow our tweets on Twitter.

Related articles

• Keep Feet Healthy During Cold Weather
• Anatomy of the Foot
• Basic Foot Care Tips

Brandon Knight's Terrible Week

Pistons' guard Brandon Knight has had a week he'd like to forget. 
Earlier in the week his name went viral (have you seen the dunk face shirts???) after Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan dunked over his head. He didn't talk to the media after the game on Sunday, but joked on Twitter, "It wasn't in the scouting reports that the Clippers threw lobs, lol."
Then Monday, he left the game against the Utah Jazz with 8:28 left in the first quarter because of a left ankle sprain. 
It just isn't your week, Brandon.
The injury occurred when Knight tried to drive to the basket against the defense of Jazz guard Randy Foye and he stepped awkwardly on his ankle. Knight fell immediately to the ground, holding his ankle. He received help on the floor and was aided to the locker room because he couldn't put any weight on his ankle. Knight was fouled on the play and as soon as he was unavailable to shoot the free throws, he was done for the day. 
Early reports have the injury listed as serious, with Yahoo! Sports writer Adrian Wojnarowski tweeting, "X-rays negative on Detroit guard Brandon Knight's left ankle, but injury appears to be a 'significant' sprain, league source tells Y!". 
Knight has played in all but two games for the Pistons and is second on the team with 13.8 points and 4.1 assists. Knight has the talent to become an elite player- he averaged 12.8 points as a rookie and his numbers dropped slightly during his second season. 
Reference: USA Today.
If you believe have a foot problem and do not currently see a podiatrist, call one of our six locations to make an appointment.
Connecticut Foot Care Centers
Podiatrists in CT
Visit our website, like our page on Facebook, and follow our tweets on Twitter.

Chelsea Handler's Assistant Chuy Bravo Breaks Foot

Leave it to celebrities to do stupid things.
Chelsea Handler's on-air sidekick Chuy Bravo broke his foot and can no longer compete in ABC's reality show, Splash.
You would expect for us to now say that Bravo broke his foot while rehearsing and practicing for the television show, but alas, we cannot. Bravo reportedly jumped on a table during a party celebrating the show's premiere during the first day of filming and the table broke. As Bravo fell, he fractured his heel bone. He had to withdraw from the competition because the injury is severe enough that he can't put any weight on it, and therefore couldn't be on a diving board. Bravo didn't even know how to swim when he signed up for the program.
Handler says of her sidekick, "He fell off a table. He's so lazy, he doesn't even want to dive. So that got him out of this job and the diving job."
Handler has gotten a temporary on-air sidekick while Bravo is off recuperating and his replacement for Splash is Brandi Chastain, the soccer player who famously ripped off her jersey during the 1999 World Cup.
Reference: Zap 2 It and E Online.
If you believe have a foot problem and do not currently see a podiatrist, call one of our six locations to make an appointment.
Connecticut Foot Care Centers
Podiatrists in CT
Visit our website, like our page on Facebook, and follow our tweets on Twitter.

What Are Character Shoes?

If you're a dancer, you've probably heard of, or worn character shoes before. Typically character shoes are worn in musicals, or for parts that do not require specific dance shoes, like tap, pointe, or jazz shoes. 
Character shoes are designed to help the dancer dance on a stage and help them with footwork. So what makes a character shoe a character shoe? "The flexibility of it, so you can feel the floor under you and articulate the dance movement," said Alicia Rossi, manager of LaDuca Shoes, a NYC midtown dance store that services the theater, dance, film, and television communities. "It's the flexibility of the shoe. It's the way they're engineered. You can get movement throughout the foot and are not held back."
Character shoes are made for both men and women, but are usually seen on female ensemble members in a musical. Shoes come in either black or tan, so as to not distract from the dancer, and typically have a heel height of one or two inches. Many character shoes also have a strap that crosses the ankle but also have a T-strap in the front as well, so the shoes don't fly off during high-kicking sequences. 
But why is it a character shoe and not a Broadway shoe, or a theater shoe? Finding an exact answer to that is difficult. During the first decades of the 20th century there was a New York chain called the London Character Shoe Company, but they catered to the general public, not the performing community. 
A possibility is that the name was derived from the character dance, which is an essential part of the history of ballet. It is usually a stylized type of traditional folk or regional dance, adapted for the stage. A famous example are the series of dances that open Act 3 of Swan Lake. 
Phil DaLuca, who danced for Agnes DeMille and Twyla Tharp before he became a shoe designer, says there is another explanation. He says that they were called character shoes to fit the character the performer was portraying. "For instance, a black shoe for a keystone cop; a sneaker for a gang member in West Side Story. They weren't functional shoes. They fit the character. The look was appropriate for that character."
The term character shoe came into fashion during the 40's and 50's when American musical came into its maturity, "when dancers stopped being just chorus girls. Now, when men were dancing they were a character, and not just a 'chorus ballet boy'."
When asked why most character shoes today look the same, DaLuca said, "Like everything else, things will become... watered down. Now you have a stock character shoe."
If you believe have a foot problem and do not currently see a podiatrist, call one of our six locations to make an appointment.
Connecticut Foot Care Centers
Podiatrists in CT
Visit our website, like our page on Facebook, and follow our tweets on Twitter.

Related articles

• Selecting the Right Gym Shoe
• Tips For Cleaning Shoes and Boots
• Wear Patterns And Shoes
• Basic Foot Care Tips
• Lady Gaga Cancels Concerts, Suffering From Synovitis

Men Used To Wear Heels???

Heels for generations have been a sign of femininity, elegance, and sex appeal. When a woman walks into a room in heels, confident, everyone notices. Women will often say they feel more like a woman when they are in heels.
But heels aren't practical- you can't wear them in snow or ice, on the grass, or when you go hiking. Overall, even the most ardent high heel wearer will tell you that they're not very comfortable. Makes you wonder if they were originally designed to walk in.
They weren't.
"The high heel was worn for centuries throughout the near east as a form of riding footwear," says Elizabeth Semmelhack of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.
In Persia, the historical name for modern day Iran, good horsemanship was essential to their fighting styles. "When the soldier stood up in his stirrups, the heel helped him to secure his stance so that he could shoot his bow and arrow more effectively," says Semmelhack. By the end of the 16th century, Shah Abbas I had the largest cavalry in the world and was known to make ties with his Western Europe neighbors to defeat the Persian's enemy, the Ottoman Empire.
So in 1599 Abbas sent the first Persian diplomatic mission to Europe, calling on Russia, Spain, and Germany. Just like so many trends in our modern history, all things Persian became the "must haves" for anyone who was anyone. The Persian style shoes were adopted by aristocrats, who believed the shoes gave them a virile, masculine appearance. When the style began to trickle down to the lesser classes, the aristocracy raised the heel heights.
Didn't matter these shoes had no value in the muddy, garbage and sewage filled streets of Europe during the 17th century. "One of the best ways that status can be conveyed is through impracticality," says Semmelhack, who added that ridiculous clothing and accessories have been used by the rich for centuries to announce their high status. "They aren't in the fields working and they don't have to walk far," says Semmelhack. Very true.
King Louis XIV of France was the Imelda Marco of his day, known for his enormous collection of shoes. Short in stature at 5 feet 4 inches, Louis often added 4 inches to his heels, along with elaborate battle scenes painted on the heels. The heels and sole were always dyed red, an expensive color that carries a martial overtone.
Soon other monarchs were copying this trend. Charles II of England's coronation picture of 1661 has him in high, red French style heels, even though he was over 6 feet tall. In the 1670's King Louis issued an edict that only members of his court could wear the fancy red heels. All one had to do to see if another was in favor with the crown was to look at their shoes.
The Enlightenment brought with it a new respect for the rational and practical, rather than the flamboyant and unnecessary. Men's fashion shifted to simpler clothing. This was seen especially in England, where aristocrats wore simplified clothing that matched their work managing country estates.
This was the beginning of the Great Male Renunication, when men would abandon bright, colorful clothes for dark, sober choices. Men's clothing no longer was a symbol of social class and the differences between genders was becoming more pronounced.
"There begins a discussion about men, regardless of station, of birth, if educated, could become citizens," says Semmelhack.
By 1740 men had stopped wearing heels altogether.
Could we ever return to a point when men would wear high heels again? It's a possibility, says Semmelhack. "Absolutely. If it becomes a signifier of actual power, then men will be as willing to wear it as women." We'll see about that.
If you believe have a foot problem and do not currently see a podiatrist, call one of our six locations to make an appointment.
Connecticut Foot Care Centers
Podiatrists in CT
Visit our website, like our page on Facebook, and follow our tweets on Twitter.

Cardinals' Beltran Bruises Right Foot

Let's hope this is not an inauspicious opening to this year's baseball season.
St. Louis Cardinals' right fielder Carlos Beltran left last Thursday's game after being hit in the right foot from an errant pitch by Miami starter Jacob Turner.
Beltran tried to tough it out, staying in the game and running the bases in the Cardinals' six run inning, but the team did not send him back out on defense for precautionary reasons. Beltran instead headed to the clubhouse where X-rays were taken of his foot. The results were negative.
"I tried not to think about it and tried to run regular around the bases, but then it got sore," Beltran said after the game, adding, "It's painful. It's painful."
Beltran said the injury was day to day. At the time, he had just two days left before joining Team Puerto Rico for the beginning of the World Baseball Classic this Friday. When asked if the injury would affect his status for the Classic, Beltran replied, "Who knows? We'll see how it feels. Right now it's sore."
Beltran sat out last Friday and Saturday's games, saying that "Yesterday I couldn't put my tennis shoes on. Today, I put my tennis shoes on and went in the cage and hit a little bit. It's painful, but I've got to do things related to baseball."
Beltran hit .269/.346/.495 with 32 home runs and 97 RBIs in 151 games last season for St. Louis and is expected to be a free agent after this season. He's hoping to feel well enough to play his position at right field during the WBC and not be placed as a designated hitter, saying "Being a DH is not my thing."
References: MLB and St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
If you believe have a foot problem and do not currently see a podiatrist, call one of our six locations to make an appointment.
Connecticut Foot Care Centers
Podiatrists in CT
Visit our website, like our page on Facebook, and follow our tweets on Twitter.

This Little Piggy Went To the Pyramid...

The world's oldest prosthetic body parts are toes! Researchers have long suspected that two artificial toes are the world's oldest, and a new study proves this theory. Volunteers without a big toe showed how the prosthetic would have made walking around in ancient Egyptian sandals easier, and they were not just used in burial or other non-practical ways.
The Greville Chester toe is at the British Museum and dates back before 600 B.C. and is made of cartonnage, a type of ancient paper mache- in those times a mixture of linen, animal glue, and tinted plaster. The other toe, the leather and wood Cairo toe, dates between 950 B.C. and 710 B.C. and was found on a female mummy near Luxor. It is currently located at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
"Several experts have examined these objects and had suggested that they were the earliest prosthetic devices in existence. There are many instances of ancient Egyptians creating false body parts for burial but the wear plus the design both suggest they were used by people to help them walk," said lead researcher Jacky Finch of the University of Manchester.
To prove her theory, Finch recruited two volunteers who were both missing their big right toe and fitted them with replicas of the the fake toes and Egyptian sandals. The volunteers walked 33 feet barefoot, with the shoes on, and then with the replicate toes with and without the sandals. Finch recorded their movements and measured the pressure of their footsteps with a special mat.
The fake toe allowed one of the volunteers 87 percent of the flexion of the intact left toe when wearing the replicas with the sandals. However, the volunteer's ability to push off the ground was diminished without the sandals. The second volunteer got between 60 and 63 percent flexion wearing the replica with and without the sandals.
The toes did not cause any high pressure points, leading researchers to believe the original prosthetics were quite comfortable. Wearing the sandals without the fake toes did however cause pressure under the foot to rise sharply. "The pressure data tells us that it would have been very difficult for an ancient Egyptian missing a big toe to walk normally wearing traditional sandals," Finch said in a statement.
If you believe have a foot problem and do not currently see a podiatrist, call one of our six locations to make an appointment.
Connecticut Foot Care Centers
Podiatrists in CT
Visit our website, friend and like our page on Facebook, and follow our tweets on Twitter.