Custom Orthotics: Make Your Feet and Back Happy

The Problem:

We all know that foot pain can turn a good day into a bad one. It can stop you from walking for exercise, and make a simple trip to the store an ordeal you want to procrastinate. You’ve tried “gellin”, those infomercial inserts, high dollar shoes with little to no decrease in pain. You’ve noticed that it’s harder to be optimistic when you feet hurt, and your patience runs thin. Foot pain even makes your knees and back hurt more.

The Reason:

• There are 26 foot bones. One-quarter of the bones in your body are in your feet…
• 7 tarsal (ankle) bones, 5 metatarsal (mid foot) bones, and 14 phalanges (toe bones)
• 33 joints
• More than 100 muscles, tendons (fibrous tissues that connect muscles to bones), and ligaments (fibrous tissues that connect bones to other bones)
• AND, a network of blood vessels, nerves, skin, and soft tissue.

And all of these have to work in harmony in order for the miracle of walking, or even standing upright, to occur.

There are 3 arches that need to be maintained for the foot to move and work correctly. The largest (and most important) is the medial longitudinal arch (the inside of your foot from heel to toes, commonly called “the arch”). Next, there is the lateral longitudinal arch (not nearly as high as the medial, yet still important for function) and the transverse arch that goes cross-wise to the longitudinal arches.

The arches are maintained by the shape of the bones, and the ligaments, tendons, and muscles. All of these components when working the way they were designed allow movement, shock absorption, and propulsion… let the feet do what we want them to do.

When this incredibly complex mechanism doesn’t work right (faulty biomechanics), symptoms (like aching, stiffness, pain, numbness, plantar fasciitis, heel spurs, bunions, corns, or calluses) can occur.

The Answer is custom orthotics.

We cast your feet in foam and send the molds off to Footlevelers in Virginia. When we cast your feet, we do it in weight bearing (standing) position, which shows the faults most effectively. They create custom orthotics specifically for your feet, activity level, and shoe style, and send them back to us. We can specify for correction of pronation, supination, heel spurs, shoe type (dress, athletic, work boots, low heels, etc.), have magnets inserted, and customize the leather footbeds for heavy wear, sweating problems, extra cushioning, etc.

I have been wearing Footlevelers for 27 years now… I have run over 20,000 miles wearing them (not the same pair, of course), ski with them in my boots, wouldn’t hike or backpack without them, have them in my work shoes, my casual shoes, and my sandals.

I have fit over 1000 patients with Footlevelers custom orthotics with rave reviews and stories of being able to walk for miles again without pain, get up in the morning without having to hobble around for a few minutes, hanging up canes, stop taking Advil.

Come in and talk to us about orthotics. They might be the answer you’ve been searching for.

Michael Davis, DC

Why Do I Need to be Periodically Re-Examined?

You are always “re-examining” yourself, typically beneath the level of your conscious attention. It’s natural to do so. You know when you “feel” better and when you don’t. You rely upon your feelings, pain or no pain, presence or absence of fever, body aches, or fatigue, etc. as accurate indicators of whether you’re healthy or in need of assistance. However, basing critical health decisions upon feelings alone couldn’t be more misleading so much of the time.

The things you feel are referred to as “subjective” factors. The things that are measurable are called “objective” findings. Objective, comparative information is essential since only 10-15% of your nervous system has anything to do with feelings of pain. The other 85-90% could be disturbed in its function (and often is) and you typically wouldn’t feel anything. This is why people are frequently shocked to see how long their spines have been decaying when viewing their x-rays.

Why is this so important? It’s because your nervous system directs the function of every organ, tissue, and cell of your body. It coordinates every aspect of your existence. There is NOTHING else as important to your well-being, and yet without measuring its functioning periodically you’re only guessing and have no accurate idea of how well you are performing. Chronic pain and illness nightmares commonly result.

Your ongoing health and well-being is absolutely dependent upon optimum nervous system communication of intelligent information. If you’d like to understand this better, please make sure that you’ve recently attended our Part 1 AND Part 2 classes. We can also provide you with additional research. After the initial corrective phase of your care we perform re-examinations at least twice a year and here is a summary of the important reasons:

1. Re-exams give us objective (things we can measure) findings for the neurology and physiology we are affecting. We started your care with computerized scans of your nervous system and spinal muscular system. Performing these scans during the re-exam let’s us evaluate your response to care.
2. Re-exams keep both of us accountable. If your progress is slower than it should be, it could be that you are doing something in your life that is impeding your healing like sleeping on your stomach while also alerting us to areas requiring more attention.
3. Re-exams help guide us in making the best and most accurate recommendations for your adjustment frequency as well as home care and exercise programs.
4. Re-exams let us know when the active phase of care is complete and you can begin wellness care. They also document your current status for comparison purposes if you should happen to suffer an auto accident or other injury.

Re-exams are a vital part of your care at Norton Chiropractic Wellness Center. Thanks for wanting to understand why they are necessary for us to help you be your best.

Odds Are You Will Be Disabled By Back Pain – But You Can Overcome the Odds for a Better Life

• Are you currently experiencing back pain that’s impacting your quality of life?
• Have you in the past or do you occasionally?
• When the pain goes away do you assume that the underlying condition has also gone away?
• Have you never suffered with back pain and figure you don’t really need to get a chiropractic spine and nervous system evaluation because odds are you’ll be fine? Would you gamble in the same way with your teeth and never visit a dentist?

The latest statistics reveal that approximately 85% of Americans will suffer a disabling back condition at some point in their lives. The odds are against you managing to avoid this result, unless you take diligent, focused action to improve your spine and nervous system function.

This is critically important whether you’ve ever had pain up until now or not. It’s necessary whether you’re 70, 50, or only 30 years old. In fact, more essential than parents taking their kids to have fillings put in baby teeth that fall out, is having your kids checked early in life for nervous system compromising subluxations. This is especially true after any fall, sports injury, or car accident, or if they’re getting colds, ear infections, allergies or asthma, or attention deficit issues.

According to an American Medical Association study reported on last year in the New York Times, $86 billion was spent in 2005 alone on back pain treatment and yet back FUNCTION was not improved! $20 billion of it was spent on pain-masking drug treatment efforts alone with no ultimate gain, and in fact a net loss occurred due to the drug side-effects and addiction consequences.

Of course function wasn’t improved. Nothing was provided to most people that addressed their post-trauma, post-stress functional losses, only symptom management tactics.

What a tragedy!

But functional restoration and optimization of the spine and nervous system is what chiropractic, when practiced with the ideal focus and intention, is all about. We are masters of restoring and supporting high-level function and a high-level, dynamic quality of life.

Another recent study found that most 17 year olds already have cracks in their lumbar spine discs, which sets the stage for later bulges, herniations, chronic pain, and eventual surgery recommendations.

The good news is that almost all chronic back pain, degenerative decay, need for strong medications to manage it, and surgery to attempt to repair it can be avoided with proper care earlier in life.

The bad news is that most people won’t take action to care for their spine/nervous system conditions until they’re extremely advanced into permanent damage. Unfortunately, this makes complete recovery and restoration nearly impossible, even though we can usually always still help to some degree.

How can countless thousands of our patients, when we show them severe spinal disc and joint breakdown on x-ray that has been worsening for years to decades, tell us “Oh no doc, I never had a problem until two months ago”? This negative and sometimes depressing reality occurs because only a small percentage of your nervous system is dedicated to pain awareness. Therefore, massive damage frequently occurs without any awareness on our part even after seemingly minor car accidents or other injuries.

This quiet decline is similar to the damage slowly being caused by high blood pressure, poor diet, and excessive stress. Heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are just a few examples of other conditions that brew undetected under the surface without alerting you to the accumulating damage but eventually steal your quality of life and often lead to premature death.

Don’t simply guess and hope that you’re doing okay. Your nervous system directs and coordinates every aspect of your life and it travels through and anchors into your spine! Don’t stick your head into the sand. Problems silently build up and eventually trip you up into the 85% with a disabling back condition and various other health losses.

Take the one key first step to knowledge that can set you free. Call us today at 559-490-9550 to schedule a simple, painless assessment that includes a computerized evaluation of how well your all-important nervous system is functioning. We can help.