Hi.
Today, I want to talk about a problem that can be excruciatingly painful and that is
cramps in your feet.
You can get these cramps going into your toes.
They often occur at night.
They'll do it while you're in bed and you have to jump out of bed, step down to try
and stretch them out.
They are...if you've had them, you know them.
They can be really, really painful.
So when you get these cramps...so let's look at the bottom of the foot here.
This white structure represents your plantar fascia ligament.
I'm going to take that off.
And underneath here are a series of muscles that run from your heel up into your toes.
These are called the intrinsic muscles of the foot.
And when you get cramps in your feet, it is these muscles cramping up or overreacting
that is causing that severe pain.
This usually occurs if those muscles have been overused somewhat during the day.
And they get overused if you've been very active, but sometimes, it's just your foot
structure.
If you have a foot that flattens out more than it should, just a little bit sometimes...if
it just flattens out a little more than it should, that foot is unstable.
And these muscles then have to work to try and work harder to support your foot.
And just over the course of a day, they get overused and then you go to rest at night,
and that's when they cramp up.
So there's several simple things you can do to try and prevent cramping.
The first one is strengthening the arch of the foot.
And I'm not going to go into great detail right now on exactly how to do those, but
if you just go to our website and do a search for arch strengthening exercises, you'll find
our suggestions on the best way to strengthen the arch.
But essentially, one set of them are balance exercises.
Balance exercises recruit all of these muscles.
And the second one is doing an exercise where you put a towel on a surface and you bring
that towel up to you with your toe.
So there's detailed information on how to do those exercises on the website.
The second thing you want to do is make it so these muscles aren't having to work quite
so hard during the day.
And that's to use some arch support under your foot.
So if we can stop that foot from going down by taking an arch support...this is a really
good over-the-counter device and we put that underneath there.
That foot's not flattening out so much.
It's not as unstable and so those muscles aren't having to contract so hard all day
long, trying to support you.
And that helps eliminate those cramps that you get later in the day.
Now, if this isn't enough, you can get a custom orthotic.
The biggest difference with a custom orthotic is they're going to conform tighter to the
arch of your foot.
And by conforming tighter to your arch, they're going to take more tension off of those structures,
make the foot more stable, and once again, it's not...your muscles aren't going to have
to work so hard to try and support your foot, so they're not as likely to cramp later in
the day.
Now, it's key that you go...if you're going to get a custom orthotic, see a podiatrist
that specializes in orthotic therapy, because that orthotic really should grab that arch
very, very tight.
I see a lot of these devices made that just don't conform close enough to the arch of
the foot.
Also, don't think you need to wear this big orthotic in a big shoe.
You can get orthotics both pre-fabricated and custom that fit into a dress shoe.
This goes into a flat.
This even bends to fit into a high heel.
Again, if you go to our website and do a search for foot cramps, you'll find a list of the
best over-the-counter devices that you can get for all kinds of shoes that will do that.
The other thing I would recommend, and these are listed on the website also, is a sandal
that has good arch support.
By doing that, once again, if you're maybe wearing this around the house or if you are
wearing flip flops at any point, you'll get that extra support so those muscles aren't
working so hard.
And once again, much less likely to see cramping later at the end of the day.
So to summarize that, two main ways to prevent foot cramps.
Number one, strengthening the arch.
And again, go to the website, do a search for arch strengthening, and you'll find those
suggestions.
And number two, arch support.
And go to the website, do a search for foot cramps, and you'll find a list of items that
you can get to support your arch.
So that's it on foot cramps.
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