Over the past few weeks heel pain has sidelined or hobbled   Albert Pujol’s of the Los Angeles Angels, Mike Napoli of the Boston Red Sox’s and Jarius Byrd of the Buffalo Bills.   If you are student athlete going back to high school or university, heel pain is something you want to avoid.   Heel pain will change the way you perform your sport.    If you are developing heel pain, you will start to notice pain when you take your first step in the morning.   As time goes on, you will dread your first step out of bed because it is going to be painful. With practice you will perfect a method to keep as much weight off of your painful heel.   You will realize the pain will get a little better as the day goes on but you also know that when you get home and sit down but have to get up again it’s going to be painful!   One of the main reasons heel pain occurs is because the plantar fascia pulls away from its attachment under the heel bone.  ...

Thick, yellow nails are usually caused by the presence of a fungal nail infection.    A fungal infection of the toe nails is a common foot problem.   Nail fungus (onychomycosis) is an infection of the nail plate and nail bed.   It is caused by various types of fungi, which are commonly found throughout the environment. Fungi are simple parasitic plant organisms that do not require sunlight for growth.   A group of fungi called dermatophytes have evolved to attack human nails and skin. The infection of the nail begins with some type of trauma to the nail. The dermatophyte gains entry into the nail and begins to feed on the nail protein called keratin. The big toe nail is the most commonly infected toe nail.   Our big toe nails can get damaged or traumatized from:   The way we walk or run. ( because of a unstable low arched foot or bunion) The   shoes we wear ( tight fitting shoes or high heels)   The type of job (the requireme...

Recently on the Ellen Show Mark Wahlberg discussed the removal of a portion of nail that was causing him pain in his nail groove.  His co star Micky O'Keefe from the movie "The Fighter" advised Mark to see his daughter-in-law who is a podiatrist.  A portion of Mark's big toenail that was digging into his skin was removed permanently so it would not grow back.  I use an internet service called Google Alerts.  I subscribed to an alert for "Ingrown nails".  Any query on "ingrown nails" is sent to my smart phone.  One of the most common questions concerning ingrown nails is from the website "answers.yahoo.com" . Most questions are usually  "what I can do to cure or get rid of my ingrown toenail".   This type of question occurs daily.  Many people suffer from the pain of ingrown nails.  Mark Wahlberg stated his nail was growing the wrong way.  I am only guessing but Mark may have tried to cut his nail hoping to reli...