Leana Hunt­ley

Po­di­a­trist

It’s no se­cret that Car­ni­val can neg­a­tive­ly im­pact your feet, be it the ‘fête af­ter fête” phe­nom­e­non or mas­querad­ing, the days af­ter the fes­tiv­i­ties, is when foot pain or dis­com­fort ac­ti­vates. You may take pain med­ica­tions, mas­sage your feet with mus­cle balm, and stay in bed all day, with hopes that the pain will go away, but not al­ways are these ef­fec­tive reme­dies. This ar­ti­cle seeks to pro­vide key restora­tive tech­niques to en­sure your feet are feel­ing hap­py and healthy.

Let’s start with Foot Pain

Pain and dis­com­fort are the hall­mark of the last lap ef­fect on the feet. It may be mild and achy, to in­tense and se­vere. Some peo­ple may not be able to walk for hours, or a full day. Per­sons with Di­a­betes should al­ways use cau­tion when re­ceiv­ing foot care.

The pain could be lo­calised to a pres­sure spot, or glob­al­ly through­out the foot. This seems to vary de­pend­ing on foot struc­ture, and the pres­ence of any un­der­ly­ing foot prob­lems, such as bunions, ham­mer toes, and metatarsal­gia, to name a few. Of course, heel height/shoe struc­ture, and time spent in the shoe, are cul­prits too.

Foot swelling, cuts and in­juries are al­so pos­si­ble; so here are some tips to help with your af­ter Car­ni­val cool down:

1 Soak your feet in Min­er­al Foot Bath

Apart from be­ing re­lax­ing, Ep­som salt soaks have long been used to soothe sore body parts, es­pe­cial­ly the feet. It is not a salt, but rather a nat­ur­al min­er­al of mag­ne­sium and sul­phate, and can be ab­sorbed through the skin. Mag­ne­sium is im­por­tant for the body, to build and re­pair tis­sues, as it’s used in more than 300 en­zy­mat­ic re­ac­tions. Warm wa­ter al­lows for the di­la­tion of the body blood ves­sels and opens the skins pores. So, think of this as a min­er­al bath, that pro­vides di­rect ben­e­fit to your feet, when they need to re­cov­er.

2 Wear Sneak­ers

It is im­por­tant to al­low your feet to ‘rest’ af­ter the sea­son. The ball of the foot or heel takes the most pres­sure, and one could de­vel­op tears in the lig­a­ments that sup­port the toes on the bot­tom of the foot, and/or de­vel­op stress frac­tures. Nonethe­less, well-cush­ioned sneak­ers work the best, and you can wear padded socks for ex­tra cush­ion. If you can’t wear sneak­ers, try to lim­it the amount of time your foot is ex­posed to your nor­mal footwear; to com­pen­sate, wear slip­pers or sneak­ers to and from your des­ti­na­tion.

3 Yo­ga, Stretch­ing & Foot Ex­er­cis­es

The Achilles Ten­don and calf mus­cle are cru­cial ar­eas of con­cern, as it eas­i­ly be­comes tight­ened, so it’s im­por­tant to ac­tive­ly per­form stretch­es. Yo­ga is an ex­cel­lent method to achieve this restora­tion, us­ing spe­cif­ic pos­tures that ben­e­fit the feet. Per­form­ing sim­ple range-of-mo­tion ex­er­cis­es of the an­kles, can keep the blood flow­ing with­in the foot, help­ing to re­move ex­cess flu­ids (swelling) in the low­er leg. This is best ac­com­plished by mov­ing the foot up, down, left, right, and in a clock­wise and an­ti-clock­wise po­si­tion. An­oth­er method, is to draw an imag­i­nary al­pha­bet with your big toe.

4 Pam­per Your Feet

Mas­sage is key to pro­vid­ing pain re­lief from mus­cu­loskele­tal in­jury, as well as al­le­vi­ate anx­i­ety. The ther­a­peu­tic ben­e­fits of mas­sage go back to an­cient times, and dozens of tech­niques ex­ist. The arch of the foot con­tains sev­er­al mus­cles that are in­trin­sic to the foot, and work to sta­bilise the toes. The al­tered align­ment and bio­me­chan­ics, may re­sult in mus­cu­lar im­bal­ances with­in the foot, and mus­cu­lar strains. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, mas­sage may al­so im­prove blood flow and al­le­vi­ate lym­phat­ic ede­ma. The pres­ence of im­prop­er­ly cut toe nails, or in­grown nails, may cause pain af­ter wear­ing Car­ni­val boots. Cal­lus­es them­selves may be painful due to their lo­ca­tion. Hav­ing a pedi­cure may di­rect­ly al­le­vi­ate these painful ar­eas.

5 Mois­tur­is­ing is King

It is im­por­tant to keep the skin on your feet well mois­turised, as rough ar­eas de­vel­op on pres­sure points and can be painful. The ball of the foot takes most of the weight­bear­ing, and the foot can be­come quite cal­lused in this area. Thick­er cal­lus­es may be­come painful, es­pe­cial­ly if they are cracked and fis­sured. The top of the toes may de­vel­op corns, that can al­so be painful in a closed toe shoe. The back of the heel is no­to­ri­ous for be­com­ing ir­ri­tat­ed, and you can de­vel­op blis­ters and sores with dry skin.

Mois­turis­ers ded­i­cat­ed to the feet are of­ten best, as the skin of the bot­tom of the foot is thick­er, and ac­tu­al­ly has an ad­di­tion­al lay­er of skin, com­pared to skin else­where. Mois­tur­is­ing creams should be ap­plied af­ter a bath (or foot bath), for max­i­mal sat­u­ra­tion, twice dai­ly.

Keep in mind, your feet mir­ror your gen­er­al health... so let’s cher­ish them!