Merv – You and your feet
Don’t you just love it when someone somewhere comes up with an idea and acts upon it!
Well I certainly do, and I think that my blog here at www.mervrees.com is just the place to tell you about it!
How often do you think about your feet?
How often do you think about your feet as with health relevance?
The ladies do, I have no doubt, but unless we’re in pain most men do not give them a second thought!
Are they elegant, crooked, long, short, wide, do your toes line up across the tips, are any toes the same length? Is your big toe on the left similar in size to the one on the right? Do you have a corn or more than one corn?
Do you have a verruca?
Do you have cracked skin, if so where about on your foot or feet?
Do you have a fungal infection?
So many questions and I can dream up many more if I wish to, because let’s face it at any extremity of our bodies, life for these parts have extra stress, wear and tear, simply by the amount of work and pressure they have to cope with as a matter of facts of life.
Then if you start throwing in such nastiness as arthritis etc into the mix – well h’mm!
Just think what is / are one of the main connecting factors into an awful lot of these conditions and how does one of my own manifestations of dyslexia make me start thinking of these everyday problems of millions of peoples feet worldwide, to the point where the only way my brain will let my thoughts and ideas go, is to put pen to paper and record them so I can let go of it and move on!
The majority of problems with feet are caused by trauma, bacteria or viruses. It is therefore obvious that feet hygiene will help control this to a point, but some conditions will need medical help, medication and or advice or all of the three.
However there are some conditions such as some fungi that are affected by your diet. For example, high wheat content such as, bread, cakes, biscuits and the like are one of the main contributors to causing such infections from the yeast variety, which also affects other parts of our bodies also. In the feet often the large cracks are associated with this, and so by cutting out or limiting any foods containing wheat has very positive benefits on our feet and often to your health generally.
Soaking your feet 4 to 5 times a week in a bowl of hot water with 3 tablespoons of Epsom Salts in it, will greatly improve your skin, ease your corns, and if you are suffering from arthritis, you’ll discover that this will greatly ease your joints over time as the Epsom salts have a very positive effect on the problem.
Do ask your chemist to get you a large container of commercial grade of Epsom salts (Magnesium sulphate), as this will work just fine and it is a lot cheaper.
What has all this got to do with my dyslexia? I hear you say, well it’s just this; I get muddled very easily with my left and my right! So much folk soon learn that if they are giving me directions whilst driving my car let us say, and they say, take the next right turn, invariably I will go left and the annoying thing to me is I know when I start to turn I am getting it wrong and there is nothing I can do to correct it as my brain has locked me in! Of course I try to remember to ask them to point, “That way, or this way Merv” and all is well again. Strange isn’t it but after 74 years I know it’s just part of me.
“So what”, I now hear you say, well it’s like this, recently needing a new pair of socks I was given a couple of packs of new ones to replenish my wardrobe.
The next day on getting dressed, a big smile crossed my face for right there on the insides of my now be-socked feet was a large ‘L’ on one and a large ‘R’ on the other!
Well after a good chuckle, It got me thinking, why bother?
So here we are, and you might be surprised to know that this is potentially a great health benefit, an accident prevention measure. You see, a lot of people do not change their socks daily and therefore when they are put back onto their feet often not the one they were on the day before thereby spreading any infection from one foot to another.
Now putting on my ‘health pro hat’ I am really interested and get down to the serious business of micro analysis of said socks. I have been bought these particular socks because they are extremely comfortable to wear. But this upgrade is now fascinating me as I study the ergonomics my socks construction.
Ha says I, they need to mark left from right to get the full benefit of the maximum comfort from the socks, as they are individually shaped around the toes thereby giving you what’s known as a ‘handed’ product; that must be it I thought.
The left and right of it as I saw it from my point of view giving of the health benefits was not the aim and just a happy accident of the famous high street store M & S™ (Marks & Spencer™)
But wait as I studied them further and proceeded with my analysis I found another astounding fact, for right there on the packaging, ‘with silver technology’ – Wow!
This really is something, for my medical curiosity antennae is up!
Now further research and a chance hearing of an end of radio programme ‘throwaway comment about nanoparticles, I may have it pinned down. Nanoparticles (microscopically small manufactured particles) of many materials are becoming all the rage these days and are turning up in everything from beer to vaccines, medical instruments and more, and tend to give the products a greater value for whatever reason.
However in the case of my socks I am not sure what the manufacturers aim was but from where I stand, the presence of silver introduced into the socks I can see three immediate advantages from my slim knowledge.
1. The presence of silver should help eliminate the foot odour.
2. More importantly the silver will automatically fight foot infections.
3. As millions of pairs of socks are washed the silver will gradually leach out and be washed down the drains and could continue working on the environment in a positive way.
Ah, and then I found their socks adverts on the web, www.marksandspencer.com they say and I quote them “Sanitised® Silver technology effectively reduces bacteria that cause odours”. [End of quote]
Still, I do not understand why they do not put that message on their product though, for although I am sure many thousands will look up their website the vast majority of us never think to do so, let alone read the small print on the website, which is a pity “ ’Cos they are such great socks”!
Well done M & S™
Well that’s all for now, so have a great 2010,
Wishing you all good health and happiness!
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