Yes, all it takes is a mirror and two minutes to do something good for your health. Just think, doing something that small can make you feel like you are taking control of your health.
I would like you to look at your feet – tops, bottoms, sides, and between the toes each day. Come on, it will only take a minute.
Have you ever looked at the bottom of your feet? Think about it. Have you? Well, it is time to check them out.
Your feet can give you some heath insights.
The first thing that you might notice is that your feet are dry. You might think, “Who cares? They are just my feet.” I care and you should too. Dry feet can cause your skin to break down. When your skin breaks down, bacteria and fungus can get in and cause infections. If you notice that your feet are dry, then take a minute each day and put some lotion on them. Just make sure that you don’t leave lotion sitting between your toes because that is not a great idea either. Think, warm + dark= breeding ground.
The next thing you want to check are your toe nails. Are the gorgeous or are they looking a bit yellow and thick. It could mean that you have a nail fungal infection. Instead of hiding your feet, you might want to go to your friendly local podiatrist and have your nails checked. It could be a fungal infection or it could be thick toe nails. The doctor can tell you and suggest a remedy.
But I do want you to look at your toe nails and see if there are any spots on them. If there is a spot, I want you to take notice of where it is and what it looks like. I will be talking about this more in the next few weeks but spots on your toe nails are important to watch. They can be an urgent health issue (think melanoma) or they can be insignificant.
Now look around and between your toes. Is there any broken peeling skin? Is it itchy there? It might be a sign of athlete’s foot. If it looks bad but not itchy then you might want to do two things. The first would be to make sure you dry the area between your toes when you get out of the shower or bath. The other would be to make sure you are not wearing the same shoes every day. Your feet sweat a lot during the day and if you wear the same shoes every day, they don’t get a chance to dry out. Once again dark + moist = breeding ground.
Now grab the mirror and look at the bottom of your feet. How do they look? Do you see any spots that you didn’t know were there? Or have you never looked before so you would not know. What color are the spots? Are they moles? If you see anything that you think is out of the ordinary, then I suggest that you go see your friendly local podiatrist. Why? Well spots on the bottom of your feet can be lots of different things – some are bad and some aren’t. A doctor needs look at your feet to tell you if the spots are a health risk or not.
During July, we are going to be talking about the look of your feet and what you can tell from looking at them.
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Your Pal,
The Foot Blogger Chick