Excessive and persistent pain in the feet as well as the ankle joints could point at the existence of a condition known as flat foot pain. This happens due to the difference between a normal foot and a flat foot. While a normal foot will have an upward arch under the foot, right in the middle, the flat foot does not have such a support. This arch is usually formed by the tendons and ligaments that help in rendering support to the foot as well as stabilising the rest of the body. When these tendons and ligaments become weak, the arch begins to diminish before finally disappearing, which leaves the patient with a flat foot. This can be a painful condition. Let us look at the ways in which it may be cured.

Foot Wear: When you are suffering from this condition, it is important to wear comfortable and supportive foot wear like shoes, sandals and slippers which can support the arch and help in giving stability to the rest of the body. Besides looking for shoes that will provide the right amount of comfort, one can also use additional support like insoles that will help in giving comfort while you are walking, standing or running.
Orthotics: These are tools that can be recommended by your doctor in order to help in minimising the pressure that one feels in the foot. The orthotics usually distributes this pressure by giving much needed additional support to the arch of the foot. These tools also help in realigning the foot s ankle with its bones as well as the joints, which can help in successfully treating this condition to a great extent. They are usually customised as per your exact foot shape and size, as well as the problem you are facing, so that you have plenty of support when you are using your feet for varied activities.
Arch inserts and wraps: If your normal shoes are lacking the arch support that you require for flat feet, then you can also invest in arch inserts and wraps which will reduce the pain and prevent it from reoccurring. Also, these will help you to remain standing or walking for longer periods of time, as they add that extra bit of support to your feet for normal functioning.
Surgery: If the various non surgical treatments do not help you over a period of a few months, then it may be time to speak with your podiatrist or orthopaedic specialist so that you can go in for a surgery that will fix this problem. This kind of surgery will help in stabilising the feet and ankle bones by applying corrective foot support.

Flat Foot Pain - Ways It Can Be Treated!

The toes and heels are the most load bearing components within your feet which take most of the weight when walking, running, exercising or even standing up. The heels are an especially vulnerable part of the body which can become painful either due to injuries or excessive stress put on it. Pain in your heels can also be a sign of other problems in your body.

Causes for heel pain:

1. Sprains or straining the leg: Exercising is one of the most common culprits behind heel damage. Wearing the wrong shoes over prolonged periods, which can cause your balance to be shifted and will lead you to put strain on your heels and cause pain. Falling or spraining during exercising or training can also cause heel pain.

2. Fractures: Stress or hairline fractures can occur even without impacts or trauma and also cause pain. It will slowly build up over time. In such cases, you should immediately consult a doctor and take remedial action.

3. Achilles tendon: A common cause for heel pain, the Achilles tendon connects the calf muscle to the heel. If this is torn or damaged, it can cause pain in your heel.

4. Arthritis: The deposition of uric acid crystals in parts of your body may result in arthritis; this is a fairly common cause for heel pain as well.

Treatments available

1. Change in shoes: Shoes play a major role in the development of heel pain. You will either need to change the shoes or adjust the heels to ensure that they are at an equal and comfortable height and keep your posture natural and balanced.

2. Foot supports: There are specialized heel supports and wedges, which you can wear with the footwear. These supports help redistribute weight from the problem areas and uniformly distribute it among the other parts of the foot. Heel cups are also another form of supports you could try.

3. Pain relief medications: Sometimes aspirin or ibuprofen may be required to numb and dull the pain, if getting through the day becomes difficult or you are in the middle of work.

4. Resting: Sometimes resting is the only medication you can take to relieve the pain as it can only subside once the underlying conditions are corrected.

5. Ice packs: Cold compress and cold therapy would definitely help in numbing the area and providing temporary pain relief.

It is however, advisable to visit the doctor if the pain persists and take specialized medical care in more complicated cases wherein the pain is prolonged.

Heel Pain its Causes and Treatments

Hot and Cold therapy is one of the most popular home remedies for any kind of joint pain or muscle sprain. In some cases applying heat therapy and cold therapy alternatively, can help relieve the pain while for others only one form of therapy is necessary. To understand what to use when, one should first understand the effect of heat and cooling on the body.

Applying a heat pack or immersing the affected limb in hot water improves blood circulation and makes the muscles more flexible. Thus, it can help relax a muscle and fasten the healing of damaged tissues. On the other hand, cold therapy or cryotherapy reduces blood flow to the affected site. This helps relieve inflammation and pain caused by it. It can also make the area feel numb by reducing nerve activity temporarily.

Types of Heat Therapy
Heat therapy can be categorized as dry heat and moist heat. Dry heat involves using saunas or dry heating packs to relieve pain. This is also known as conducted heat therapy. As the name suggests, moist heat involves the use of steamed towels, hot baths and moist heating packs. This is also known as convection heat therapy. Moist heat is usually considered more effective than dry heat.

Types of Cold Therapy
Cold therapy may be applied to a part of the body or to the entire body. This includes ice packs, coolant sprays, ice baths, ice massages and whole body, cold therapy chambers.

How to use heat and cold therapy?
The sooner heat and cold therapy is given to a person, the faster they will recover from their pains. Heat therapy can be given to a person for extended periods of time but when giving cold therapy, a person should not be exposed to a cold pack or ice bath for more than 10-15 minutes. Care should also be taken no to apply ice or a frozen pack directly on the skin as it can damage the skin and nerves.

When not to use Heat Therapy?
If the injury site is swollen or bruised, cold therapy is better than heat therapy. Heat therapy should also not be applied to an open wound. People suffering from conditions such as diabetes, dermatitis, deep vein thrombosis, vascular diseases and multiple sclerosis should also avoid heat therapy as these conditions can increase the risk of burns and other such complications. Pregnant women should also consult a doctor before using a hot tub or sauna.

When not to use Cold Therapy?
Cold therapy is avoidable for treating stiff joints and muscles. People suffering from poor circulation and sensory disorders should also avoid using cold therapy without a doctor s supervision. 

Hot & Cold Therapy - How It Can Treat Pain?

Ayurvedic treatments are mainly based on maintaining a perfect balance among the three doshas of the body, namely vata, pitta and kapha. Ayurveda has numerous healing techniques to provide individuals with proper relief from pain and one such amazing and effective pain relieving technique used in Ayurveda is called the Kizhi treatment.

What is the Kizhi Treatment?
The term Kizhi is taken from the Malayalam language and it basically is a therapy which aims at protecting as well as enhancing the health and wellness of the entire human body. However, it can also be particularly used for relieving various kinds of pains and aches in the body. In this technique, the heated oils, herbs, powders and the other prescribed items are tied into bags of muslin and then applied to the body, based on the area of pain.

Kizhi is of many other types also like Pozhikizhi and Elakizhi. Navrakizhi is specially used in case of Polio and muscle wasting.

A varied degree of pressure is applied on different body parts with a special focus on the nerve points. The nature of the ailment or the spot decides the amount of pressure to be applied using palms, fingers or heels of the hand. The entire therapy includes perspiration inducing body scrub, which is consecutively followed with a very special bath.



Kizhi - The Effective Treatment for Pain Relief!

There are various neurodegenerative disorders and Huntington Disease is one of them. It is characterized by loss of thinking ability, chorea or uncontrolled writhing and jerking movements, and psychiatric difficulties. 

Nerve cells in the brain are impaired in this disease. This leads to loss of coordination and involuntary movements. As the disease progresses, patients slowly fail to control their throat and mouth muscles and simple tasks like eating, swallowing, and speaking becomes challenging.

Huntington's Disease may also affect the reasoning and thinking abilities of an individual and makes communication and conversations more challenging. The problem of swallowing food can lead to choking as food can go down the wrong way or a lung infection in more severe cases. 

Speech-Language Pathologist or Speech Therapist helps the patients with speaking and swallowing problems with the help of various therapies.

Visiting a Speech-Language Pathologist in the initial stage of Huntington's Disease is advised. This helps in planning in advance about the ways to handle changes as the disease progresses. The therapist can help the patients when they begin showing an inability to speak or understand and swallowing problems. The symptoms showing swallowing difficulties may include choking, coughing and altered eating habits of the patient and loss of weight.

Symptoms

Dysarthria, in which the ability to remember words, understanding and forming a sentence is not lost but clear speech becomes difficult.

Stammering.

Slow or imprecise speech.

Aphasia, inability to understand what is being said and inability to remember grammar and vocabulary, and the pattern of losing a word in between the sentences.

Weak voice or low volume because of respiration issues.

Scanned Speech or unusual lengthy pauses between words.

Problem with pitch control and resonance.

Treatment

The progression of Huntington s disease varies from patient to patient and the therapy also varies as per the needs and challenges of the patients. The therapy usually starts with the discussion of problems and symptoms faced by the patients. 

For swallowing difficulties, patients may be recommended to maintain a journal of swallowing problems and fixing a time for meal intake every day. He/she may be recommended to eat soft food items, and eat slowly and chew the food properly.

As for speech therapy, one may be recommended breathing exercises. The therapist may demonstrate the patients how to overemphasize certain mouth movements to make the words easier to understand. The family of the patient is advised to reduce distraction while communicating with the patient. 

Assistive devices can also help with communication such as computers, smartphones or tablets. Other low-tech objects from everyday life, such as calendars, picture boards with a depiction of daily life activities, and object images and notebooks can also be helpful.

Take Away
Huntington Disease is a brain disorder where it becomes difficult for a person to control mouth muscles. In this, speaking, swallowing, and eating becomes a task for them. There are speech therapies that can help the patients to gather control over their words and communication problems.

 Huntington's Disease - How Effective Is Speech Therapy In It?

Trigeminal neuralgia is specified by the condition of a chronic pain that influences the trigeminal nerve. This nerve transfers sensation from one s face to his/her brain. If a person is suffering from trigeminal neuralgia, then a gentle stimulation of face (sourced from brushing teeth or applying makeup) might generate a fright of agonizing pain. The affected person might experience short and mild attacks initially. However, the trigeminal neuralgia might progress and generate more-frequently and longer attack of severely critical pain. Women get affected by this situation more than men get and it is more prominently occur in individuals older than 50 years.

Trigeminal neuralgia does not mandatorily mean that you need to experience a lifelong pain. Various types of treatment alternatives are available and so doctors can usually handle the particular condition effectively by taking help of injections, medications or surgery. Various types of triggers might cause the pain regarding trigeminal neuralgia, such as eating, drinking, shaving, brushing teeth, touching face, smiling, washing face etc.

Symptoms

The symptoms of trigeminal neuralgia might comprise of one or more patterns and some of these are described below:

Sequences of serious, jolting or shooting pain that might generate as an electric shock
Spontaneous pain attacks or attacks stimulated by different activities like face touching, speaking, chewing, or brushing teeth. Pain attacks last from a few moments to some minutes.
It is not a comprehensive list because Trigeminal neuralgia hosts various other symptoms as well. If a person feels facial pain, specifically recurring or prolonged pain or if the person does not get relief through the utilization over-the-counter pain relievers, then that person must consult a doctor.
How does Radiofrequency Ablation treat Trigeminal Neuralgia?

Trigeminal Neuralgia is a chronic and painful condition that involves the trigeminal nerve. There are two separate trigeminal nerves on both sides of the face, which carry the sensations like pain from the face to the body. Each nerve has three branches- forehand, midface and chin and trigeminal neuralgia can cause intense pain in any of these areas.

Causes-

This occurs when the trigeminal nerve functioning is disrupted. When the blood vessel/artery and the trigeminal nerve at the base of your brain come in contact, it puts pressure on the nerves and causes pain.
It also occurs as a result of ageing or multiple sclerosis
A disorder that damages the myelin sheath protecting the nerves can trigger pain
Sometimes pain occurs from tumors, which compresses the trigeminal nerves
Surgical strokes, facial trauma or strokes can also be the root cause of excruciating pain
Triggers-

Shaving
Touching your face
Eating and drinking
Putting on makeup
Brushing
Washing your face
Symptoms-

The pain can be mild and for a shorter duration or it can happen frequently for longer durations. Some experience the pain in cycles where it can come and go for days or even for weeks. Gradually the intensity of the pain lessens.

Cure by Radio-frequency Ablation

The treatment of trigeminal neuralgia is often a challenging process in clinical practice. When medicines do not prove as effective, surgery is the desired option.

Procedure-

After applying local anaesthesia, the Pain Specialist carefully inserts a needle through the corner of your mouth to reach the trigeminal nerve
The doctors then wake up the patient after stimulating the nerves and ask them to feel the stimulation at the same place where they undergo pain. This confirms their targeted location
Once you fall asleep again, the Pain Specialist uses radiofrequency heat to injure the nerve enough to create numbness and removes the pain
How Effective is Radio-frequency Ablation?

The pain is cured almost in 98% of the patients. 50% of patients report a recurrence of pain after about two years. Hence the procedure can be repeated in the same patient if necessary.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult a specialist & get answers to your questions!

Trigeminal Neuralgia And Radio-Frequency Ablation - What Causes It?

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