Foot & Ankle Specialty Blog

In the continuum of medical conditions, spider veins are relatively common and harmless. However, many people who get spider veins are dismayed by their presence and would like to get rid of the veins, if they could. Knowing what spider veins are, and what you can do to if you have spider veins, is important. Here's what you need to know. 

Post-surgical success requires that the patient play a significant role in the healing process. Different things affect healing from foot surgery, but what a patient does during the recovery period is the most critical. Here are a few tips to improve the chance of post-foot-surgery recovery.

When you consider that the human foot has more than 100 ligaments, muscles and tendons, along with 33 joints and 26 bones, it’s not surprising that several medical conditions and lifestyle choices can cause stiffness in one or both feet. Sometimes pain or stiffness in the feet is an early indicator of problems in other parts of your body. It’s important to try to determine the cause of foot stiffness and try to remedy the situation rather than working through the pain.

Regular physical activity is important for good health, but many people in the United States do not get the exercise they need to stay healthy. To help raise awareness of the benefits of exercise, many health and medical professionals celebrate National Physical Fitness and Sports Month each year during May.

Arthritis is a type of inflammation of one or more joints. It can lead to stiffness and pain in any one of your body joints, but is most common in smaller joints like your feet and ankles.

Bunions can often be treated conservatively through the use of orthotics, shoe modifications or padding efforts. However, when a bunion deformity doesn’t respond to typical treatments, there may be a need for surgery. Unfortunately, these types of surgical procedures call for a good deal of healing time, and here are five tips to help streamline post-bunion-surgery recovery.

Our feet don’t get enough credit for what they do for us. They are our main mode of transportation and they carry our full body weight 24/7 for our entire lives. We need to take care of our precious feet, because we only get one set!

While it’s not generally a health danger of any kind, hardened skin on the feet can be both unattractive and bothersome. The most common causes of hard foot skin are calluses, corns and plantar warts. While the first two are typically caused by some type of friction and/or pressure, plantar warts can be caused by a fairly common virus. Read on to learn about each of these conditions and how to resolve them.

Fans of barefoot walking often claim it's best because it's natural. However, human beings put a lot of work into designing comfortable and safe footwear for a reason. Our ancestors suffered from many painful afflictions when they were forced to go barefoot. While going barefoot inside your home isn't likely to hurt you, heading outside without shoes is a different story. Reconsider your plans for barefoot walking or running due to these potentially painful risks.

Ankle pain is one of the most common complaints we treat here at Sweeney Foot & Ankle Specialists. From complex sprains to simple overuse, your ankles can suffer from one of dozens of different problems that all result in pain. Thankfully, all these causes tend to respond well to the same basic treatments too. In addition to resting the ankle and following any treatment plans we recommend, try these tips for relieving minor ankle pain on your own.