I Don't Know You From Adam…

Foundation Repair and Physical Therapy

April 18th, 2010

Subjective:

This has been a good weekend. I haven’t accomplished a whole lot but it was good. Got some laundry done. Jenny and I went out on the town Friday night to hear some local live music with friends. Yesterday, I grilled steaks for dinner. Today we hit church and McAllister’s Deli. Grabbed a Sunday nap. Cooked ribs for dinner. Called it a weekend. I brought home a box of stuff to do for work. It’s still in the trunk of the car and it’s 6:38. Maybe I’ll get it out later. Procrastination is one of my finer attributes. For instance, Santa brought us Mac laptops for Christmas and today (April 18) I finally hooked up my video camera to it and learned to “make a movie” on this thing which I type. My plan is to do little video short movies on various physical therapy topics. I’ve had that idea for a while but just haven’t done it for various reasons. I can talk to people but have problems talking to a camera. I’ve been on TV and do fine talking to an interviewer but have a little problem talking to a lens. I’m working on it. I’d like to make shorts on various topics, sciatica, rotator cuff tears, and why flat feet are troublesome.

Objective:

We had foundation issues with our house about 2 years after it was built. Actually, we have an underground spring in the backyard and had to have Nolan Ryan and the Olshan boys come out and shore up the house. We’d dropped ¼ inch on one side of the house and 1/3 on the other. Now, heaven forbid a tornado come through here and take the house away the foundation would still be solid. If the foundation of a house isn’t solid and level, you will begin to see cracks in the sheetrock, at windows and your doors won’t close correctly. The doors were where we noticed it. Things hadn’t gotten too bad at the house when we caught what was happening, we only had one door that wouldn’t close correctly. But at a couple of doorways and at a couple of windows there were little cracks coming out of the surrounding sheetrock at the corners. Had things gone on longer, other doors would have been affected, windows potentially could have cracked, sheetrock cracks would have gotten severe, brick would have cracked, all because of a unstable foundation. Feet aren’t that different. If you’re feet sit too flat on the ground during the stance phase (the time when you are walking with the one foot on the ground) and push-off (when you propel yourself forward) it can affect many different things in the body.

Assessment:

The effect of flat feet –or even high arches– translates up the body. Problems with the feet show up where your week spot is. I’ve got flat feet. When I don’t wear my arch supports, the pain shows up in my low back. But that’s me. Let’s say you have foot issues: that’s where the pain will show up. Knee issues: pain there. And so on and so forth all the way up to the neck. Here’s the scope: if the foot sits too flat on the ground, it causes the lower leg to rotate in, putting stress at the knee, in turn this can cause the hip to turn in, stress there; this can make the hip rotate anteriorly, stressing the back; further up the chain this can lead to stress at the base of the skull –causing headaches. Now I’m not saying that everyone with flat feet is going to end up with headaches; I’m saying it can cause headaches. I don’t look at the feet on everysingle person with headaches, but if I’ve tried everything else with someone and haven’t made headway I’m gonna look at the feet. Where I see the flat-foot problem on 95% of the people that walk into the clinic is the feet and knees.

Plan:

So, how do you fix this stuff? Stretching, strengthening, and arch supports; custom or semi-custom. Current research shoes that there’s not that much difference between off the shelf orthotics and customs. I’ve been doing a fair number of each of them and having good luck with each. Tomorrow is back to work; we’re seeing lots of knees and feet right know. Feet are really my favorite thing to treat; there’s something neat to me about shoring up a person’s personal “foundation”.

APC

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