How you can better protect your knees and avoid possible surgery…
Bear with me and let’s dig in deeper with simplicity about our foot, knee and pain.
- Do you suffer with knee pain? Is it aggravated during activity like when you are walking or playing sports?.
- Does the pain in the knee wake you from your sleep at night
- Do you get knee pain when walking up or down stairs
- Does it hurt you when you stand up from a seated position.
- Do you get pain on your Ankle, hip and back?
- Have you tried all medical interventions like steroid injections and anti inflammatory drugs
- Have you been advised on surgery to help with your pain.
The pain is probably manifesting from your feet, fallen or high arches- are one of the most probable reasons why you are suffering from knee pain.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR FEET
The feet are the foundation of the body. They provide the necessary stability to perform daily activities by supporting the weight of the entire body using a strong, 3-arched bond called the plantar vault.
The plantar vault provides numerous benefits:
- Balances to the body
- Propels us forward
- Safely absorbs heel-strike shock
- Adapts to walking and running stresses.
The Plantar Vault
The foot is made up of 3 bony arches. These 3 arches in the foot are what keep the body balanced:
- Medial longitudinal arch (A–C)
- Lateral longitudinal arch (B–C)
- Anterior transverse (metatarsal) arch (A–B)
Together, these 3 arches form an extremely strong, supportive “plantar vault” that distributes the weight of the entire body.
The body assessment image shows how imbalances in the feet can lead to knee rotation, pelvic tilt and shoulder drop. These imbalances in the body can be caused by pronation and supination of the foot.
These instabilities can lead to conditions such as plantar fasciitis, knee pain, hip pain, back pain, and neck pain.
A properly aligned body will have symmetrical feet, level knees, pelvis and shoulders. Wearing Custom Orthotics may help alleviate imbalances and conditions caused by those imbalances.
If your foot has a fallen arch (FLAT FOOT) this will put a strain on the knee joint causing friction and increased stress on ligaments and tendons of the region which in turn will lead to inflammation of the joint,thus causing pain.
As a matter of fact if this stress is allowed to continue it will lead to degenerative changes in the knee as well as the hip joint thus causing osteoarthritis of the knee and hip.
Which often leads to knee or hip joint replacement surgery.
Feet are the foundation…of pain
Ninety-nine percent of feet are normal at birth. But problems develop quickly. By the first year, 8% develop foot troubles, and that number jumps to 41% at age 5 and 80% by age 20. By age 40, nearly everyone has a foot condition of some sort. Many foot conditions eventually contribute to health concerns farther up the Kinetic Chain, especially the generalized condition of “back pain” or of course runner’s knee. Spotting a potential problem originating in the feet can prevent other injuries from affecting a patient’s health and/or lifestyle.
In my clinic over the years, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that patients who I have treated after having knee or hip surgery have all shown some level of deformity of the feet, especially FLAT FOOT.
For me this is not a coincidence, actually I will go as far as to say that most patients I have seen who have had hip replacement surgery have shown deformity of the feet also.
In most of the cases the patients have had flat feet or fallen arches, in other words flat feet cause overpronation of the feet which put added stress on the ankle,knee and hip joints.
Thus causing problems in these areas and if these areas are stressed it’s only a matter of time before you will start getting back pain and sciatica symptoms.
For me the best way to eliminate this pain and reduce the risks of surgery are orthotics, which essentially are foot supports designed to reduce the stress on the foot caused by Flat feet.
The most important aspect of orthotic arch supports, is the strength at the arch and the heel,these areas must be well supported and strong to help correct the over pronation and reduce the stress on the joints.
This is why most orthotics don’t work because essentially there is not enough support under the foot, so please don’t waste your time and money on an orthotic that will not offer enough support.
Think of your feet as being like a very highly specialised piece of engineering ,like a car for example.if the tyres were not properly balanced or one of them was underinflated.
This would cause all sorts of problems on the rest of the car over a period of time, the same can be said of our feet, if they are not supported correctly- this can cause all sorts of problems on the rest of the body, as mentioned previously.
We wouldn’t neglect to get our car service so why would we neglect our feet, as Leonardo di vinci said, the human foot is a masterpiece of engineering and a work of art.
