Dark spots on the toes and feet are both a cause of concern for many patients we see and treat here at My FootDr. From wondering if they’re a sign of something serious, to being aesthetically displeasing, patients often ask us how they can get rid of the discolouration, fast.
To help, our podiatry team has shared the common causes of dark marks we see on the feet and toenails, what they mean, and what can be done to remove them.
Don’t let your feet stop you from dancing!
The performance of dance is a highly athletic pursuit that involves movement demands from the whole body. In every dance style, healthy, strong feet are vital to moving you around the dance floor in a smooth and comfortable way, free of pain and without putting you at a high risk of injury. Read more
Medically known as hyperhidrosis, this unpleasant condition describes excessive and uncontrollable sweating – mostly in the feet and hands, though it can occur anywhere over the body.
The feet are particularly vulnerable to this problem as we have over 250,000 sweat glands on the feet – and even more if our feet are bigger. When we overheat, our body releases sweat through our feet as part of keeping our temperature at a normal 37°C. While this is completely normal, in approximately 3% of people, this process is amplified, resulting in them constantly sweating through their feet.
No one knows exactly why some people sweat much more than others, but research indicates that this problem does seem to have a strong genetic component. Stress, strenuous physical activity and a build-up of toxins in the body may also contribute to sweaty feet.
If you’ve been on your feet all day, especially in hot shoes like enclosed work boots, or have ‘hot spots’ of high pressure on the soles of your feet then the sweating is likely to be worse – though this is true for anyone. More men tend to be affected than women, and it tends to affect those younger in age.
Due to the constant sweating of the feet, the skin is more likely to become macerated, taking on a white, wet appearance as the skin is more vulnerable to breaking down. This makes you more vulnerable to infections, and developing an unpleasant odour associated with fungal infections, bacterial infections, or both.
You may also develop other problems with the skin on your feet, like redness, rashes and itchiness. You’ll need to choose your shoes carefully, as your feet will have a tendency to slip inside the shoes.
The first step is maintaining good foot hygiene, and promoting a dry environment as much as possible.
Make An Appointment With Your My FootDr Podiatry Team
Your podiatrist can help you manage excessive sweating by forming a management plan and making recommendations of best foot care practices at home. This may include changing your footwear or socks, the use of specific powders or medications, changes to your routine or hygiene habits, and more.
We’ll also address any concurrent problems that have resulted from the sweating, like breakdowns or damage to the skin, Athlete’s foot infections, fungal nail infections, bacterial infections, areas of high pressure on the feet, and more.
In severe cases, a referral for botox may be made to interfere with the nerve signals that go to your sweat glands, to minimise the sweating response.
Your knee joint is one of the most complex joints in your body – and takes on an incredible amount of force during movement, even walking transmits two to three times our body weight across the joint.
As such, the knee joint is reinforced by many ligaments (as well as many other tissues) for optimum stability, support and control. When placed under great strain or trauma, these ligaments can become damaged, may partially tear – or may even completely rupture.
Excessive force applied to the ligaments, through the knee joint, is the leading cause for injury. Any direct impact or force can do this, like when a soccer ball hits your knee at high speed, or if you’re tackled during a game of rugby and your body is thrust forwards or backwards while your foot is firmly planted on the ground.
This injury will render the ligaments unable to perform their function to keep the knee joint stable and functioning well. It also causes pain, stiffness, swelling, makes it difficult for you to bend the knee and place weight on the knee, and leaves you generally feeling weak and unstable.
There are two sets of ligaments within the knee specifically that we care for here at My FootDr – the collateral ligaments and the cruciate ligaments.
Within your knee joint, you have your anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and the posterior cruciate ligament (PCL). They sit within the joint itself, connected to both ends of the femur (thigh bone) and tibia (shin bone). Instead of just connecting directly above and below one another, these two ligaments cross diagonally within the joint. This means that they prevent the bones from sliding forwards or backwards on one another, keeping the bones within the joint connected and intact.
We see a number of ACL injuries in skiing sports, basketball, soccer and other sports that involve sudden stops/starts and changes in direction. PCL injuries tend to occur more in car accidents where the knee or shin bone hits the dashboard, from falling on the knee while it’s bent or any ball sports where the ball hits the shin bone at speed.
Unlike the cruciate ligaments that are positioned within the knee, the collateral ligaments are positioned on either side of the knee joint medial collateral ligament (MCL) on the inside and on the outside of the knee lateral collateral ligament (LCL). These flat-banded ligaments also connect to both the thigh and shin bones to add stability to the joint and prevent the joint from moving side-to-side excessively, which may otherwise cause significant damage to the joint and dislocation of the structures.
MCL injuries occur when excess force is applied to the outside of the knee joint, pushing in. This may be from a ball during sports, from a car accident, and in combination with cruciate ligament injury. LCL injuries occur when there is trauma to the inside of the knee, which makes them much less common than MCL injuries as the other leg is often protecting the inside of the knee from direct damage. Still, it is very much possible, and happens in sports like soccer and rugby.
Ligament injuries must be acted upon immediately to produce the best results, as these injuries can otherwise be difficult to heal and longstanding. When ignored, the injuries can also worsen, with a ligament sprain progressing to a tear or worse.
Your My FootDr podiatrist will start by assessing the extent of the damage and your current symptoms, including which other tissues or ligaments may also be simultaneously damaged, as is often the case in knee ligament injuries.
Our goal is to reduce any strain on the damaged structures and create an ideal environment for healing, while preferably keeping you mobile. This may include the use of bracing, offloading pressure from the knee joint with custom foot orthotics (if alignment issues are causing strain on the ligaments) or ankle-foot-orthotics, using supportive and stabilising footwear. As healing progresses, we will gradually introduce a strengthening, flexibility and knee mobility program.
Growing pains in kids aged between 7 and 16 years is one of the most common problems we see and treat here at My FootDr when it comes to children’s foot health. Often, many parents don’t seek help for growing pains due to the misconception that like teething in babies, there is no treatment that can help aside from medicated pain relief, and it’s just a stage that children must grow through. This is not the case at all.
Growing pains have a distinct cause related to growth plates in the bones and the differences in growth rates between muscle and bone. As such, they have straightforward treatment solutions that our podiatrists can help you with. Often, with the right treatment, we see growing pains resolve in a matter of weeks – not months or years.
All growing bones have areas called growth plates, usually located at the ends of a bone. These areas are cartilaginous areas of bone where the body adds new bone cells and so they grow. When we reach maturity, these growth plates turn to solid bone, and so we stop growing.
As the growth plates aren’t as strong as the rest of the bone, they are more vulnerable to irritation and damage when the bone is stressed. With growing pains, it is often tight muscles and tendons that pull on and stress the bones to which they attach, that irritates the growth plates, and produces the painful symptoms we know as growing pains. Often, the reason for the tightness is that the muscles haven’t grown and elongated at the same rate that the bones have been growing during a growth spurt, and this is aggravated by higher levels of physical activity in kids of this age.
There are three main types of growing pains in the feet and legs that we treat in kids.
Growing pains in the feet often occur in a very specific area – the outside border of the foot at the bony bump called the styloid process. Your child will often grasp the outside of their foot and find it painful to walk and put pressure on the foot. The pain may come and go, or start as a small niggle before progressing to serious and debilitating pain.
Barefoot running, jumping sports and narrow fitting footwear can all be aggravating factors, as they can rub against, pull at or irritate the bone containing the growth plate, as well as the attaching peroneal tendon.
Growing pains in the foot is also known as Iselin’s Disease – learn more about this condition here.
Growing pains in the heels tend to affect the very back of the heel, as opposed to the bottom of the heel or the arch. When the heel bone grows faster than the attaching Achilles tendon during a growth spurt, the constant pull from this thick, strong tendon can damage the growth plate and kickstart the painful symptoms.
As the tension and pulling from the Achilles skyrockets during running, jumping and physical activity, the symptoms often start during or after sports.
Growing pains at the heels is also known as Sever’s Disease – learn more about this condition here.
Growing pains in the knees cause pain and sometimes swelling below the kneecap, at the top of the shins, which can radiate around the knee joint. It is thought to be caused by the strong quadriceps muscles (the group of muscles at the front of the thigh bone) that put tension on the top of the shin bone where the growth plate is located.
The pain tends to be aggravated by physical activity, especially when running, bending the knee, squatting, kicking and kneeling.
Growing pains at the knee is also known as Osgood Schlatter’s Disease – learn more about this condition here.
Andrew’s inspiration to study podiatry at The Queensland University of Technology arose thanks to his love of sport; especially cricket and hockey, and specifically after the successful podiatric treatment of his own debilitating ankle pain as a child.
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This ‘Fitness Fortune Teller’ will get the whole family moving!As podiatrists and parents, we know how important it is to keep our kids active and moving. Keeping active is not only an important part in maintaining our kid’s overall health, but foot health too!
Kids on the Move has created this fun and simple ‘Fitness Fortune Teller’ activity that you can download and print for easy fun at home. The fitness fortune teller includes various active movements for the players to complete, putting a ‘fitness’ spin on this classic school-recess activity.
Getting your kids moving can have many benefits including:
If you have any questions or concerns about your child’s balance, walking or anything lower limb related, our podiatrists are highly skilled at assessing children’s feet and lower limb biomechanics.
As having black spots beneath our toenails is far from the norm for most people, it’s not surprising that they can ring alarm bells and cause concern. Especially when we think back to favourites like Bob Marley who passed away at age 36 from a melanoma (which appears like a dark patch under the nail) that started beneath his toenail.
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A Haglund’s deformity is a bony bump at the back of the heel, close to where the Achilles tendon attaches. The size of the bump can vary depending on severity, but if you have it, you’ll be able to visibly notice the bump protruding at the back of your heel. As it is associated with rubbing and pressure, it’s also likely that the bump will be a little red in colour.
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So you’ve lost – or are well on the way to losing your toenail. It’s likely your big toe, though any toenail can come loose, and it likely pops to the forefront of your mind anytime you put on or take off socks and shoes because you’re worried that whatever is left may catch on the fabric and be painfully ripped off. Sound familiar?
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