On Remembrance Day 2011 I will be in Ottawa, Ontario attending the Canadian Federation of Podiatric Medicine Conference. I will be taking a break from the conference to attend the ceremony at the cenotaph near parliament hill.  I started practicing as a chiropodist in 1985 in London, Ontario. I was privileged to meet many war veterans at the Western Counties Wing at Parkwood Hospital.  I did not recall many of these veterans ever talk about their experiences during WW2 or the Korean War. I could only imagine what they had experienced.   During the past 10 years the number of WW2 veterans has been dwindling. I have noticed they have started to share some of their stories. I think movies such as “Saving Private Ryan” allowed them to open up. I had some veterans state they could not watch those opening scenes of the movie.  I wish I had documented some of their stories.  Some of the stories were very funny and some were very sad.  I do recall some the s...

In southern Ontario many people can’t wait to start wearing their sandals after a long winter.  Unfortunately wearing sandals over many years can result in pain in the balls of your feet.  Metatarsalagia is a general term for pain in the ball of the foot but does not specify the exact cause of the pain.  The many causes of metatarsalagia are outlined below. Sports that place tremendous pounding on the ball of the foot, like jogging. Flat feet and bunions An enlarged metatarsal head. Calluses or corns that cause the weight on the foot to be unevenly distributed. Ill-fitting shoes that put pressure on the bones of the feet. Shoes with small toe boxes that cramp your toes. The thinning or shifting of the fatty tissue of the foot pad due to aging.  Arthritis or any degenerative disease of the joints. Systemic conditions such as diabetes, which can cause nerve-type pain in the foot. Most of the causes listed above ...