How does arthritis affect our feet?
There are a number of different types of arthritis, which affect different people at different stages of their lives. The common types are either osteoarthritis, which is generally wear and tear or related to an injury, and rheumatoid arthritis, which is where an immune reaction in your body starts to attack the linings of your joints.
There are different ways that these types of arthritis can affect your feet and walking. Osteoarthritis affects larger joints like hips and knees, and that can change the way you walk, so you get sore feet. In your feet you may have osteoarthritis particularly if you have had an injury, or rheumatoid arthritis. This can lead to developing bunions or toe deformities where the small joints in your toes are affected. Finding the right shoes can be difficult, and even old shoes can become uncomfortable if your feet change shape.
How podiatrists help with arthritis.
There’s a lot of things that we can do to help by limiting the movement in the inflamed joints. Remember, arthritis means inflamed joints, and what we know is that it hurts when the joints move.
We can modify your footwear with inner soles to limit the amount of movement between bones in the joint, which will help to reduce the inflammation and reduce the pain.
Strengthening the muscles around the joint has been proven to help with knee osteoarthritis, and we can provide you with one of these tailored exercise programs specific to the affected joint.
We will also give you advice about the right sort of footwear to wear to relieve arthritis pain, and we can provide padding and support specific to the painful joints, which will help keep you moving.
If you’ve still got sore feet, and you’re finding it difficult to walk and to get around and do the normal things you want to do, then come and have a chat with us and we’ll see how we can help you further.
We can help keep you moving particularly in these colder months when some of those stiff joints start to seize up.