Dr. Brad Schaeffer, board-certified podiatrist and foot surgeon, joined Cheddar News to discuss proper foot health in order to avoid issues such as arthritis, diabetes and kidney and heart disease down the line.  Dr. Schaeffer also spoke about common foot problems, such as bunions, heel pain and stinky feet.

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Podiatrist Dr. Brad Schaeffer on Proper Foot Health

All right, we are so excited to welcome Dr Brad Schaffer from the hit T L C show my feet are killing me. I know you got that right. So good foot health is important for so many reasons. You may think that, you know, not only do they get us around where we need to go, but it also can be an indicator of other health problems. That's right. So problems with our feet could mean something else is wrong somewhere else. So, joint stiffness, that could mean arthritis, tingling or numbness. That might mean actually a sign of diabetes and swelling might indicate that there's a problem with your kidney or even heart disease, right. So, Doctor Brad is here to tell us a little bit more about how to take care of our feet. So, Brad, what are some of the most common foot problems you see when people come to your office? Sure. So typically when someone comes in with a foot issue, a lot of times it's like bunion pain, hammer toes, heel pain, arch pain, things like that. A lot of people like and they're very active, they have ankle sprains too. So we deal with the whole gamut. Wow. Now, do those insoles that you see, you know, to help with, like, a plant or fasciitis and all that kind of stuff that you see out there in, like a drug store, those things really help. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I think insoles, like Dr Scholl's are absolutely fantastic if you have a little bigger of an issue, um, sometimes you need a custom orthotic and we do all that in our offices. We're podiatrists, you know, foot and ankle specialists. We treat everything from the toes all the way up to the knee. Ok. Well, I got a common problem that's going on with a friend of mine. Not me. Feet. Ok. How do you get rid of smelling feet? Is that possible? Yeah, dude, listen, smelly feet is an issue. It was an issue for me when I was growing up when you're a teenager, you know, and all your hormones are popping off. Sometimes your feet stink a little more than the average person. So there are things that you can do. There's things you can buy over the counter to just kind of block that, um, but we'll give that to you in our office. But uh yeah, it definitely takes some. Looking into sweatiness is a big deal. So we do Botox for the feet to block those. So see how much you sweat. Yeah. So you can't, you can get it for your face. Uh You can get it for under your arms and you can also get it for your feet hurts. It hurts though. I would, yeah, I would think that would really hurt. But if you had like, an aggressively smelly foot that would work. Yeah, it works. Yeah. So it blocks those glands. Yeah, for sure. All right. Let's talk a little bit. You know, it must be an interesting specialty because, you know, there's such a stigma with feet, right? Very nice. Very nice. But you know, when we really think about our broader physical health, there are a lot of indicators in our feet that could tell us about AAA more serious problem. Yeah, absolutely. You know, like with diabetes just say, you know, that can really cause a lot of issues with the feet giving tingling numbness, burning sensation, that's called neuropathy. When your feet swell. Sometimes that can be a cardiovascular issue and just other, you know, signs of comorbidities in the body, the feet are really a telltale sign of that. So you really just wanna get your feet checked. Kind of like you go to the dentist like every six months or so you just get a quick check up, you can get baseline x rays, you can get your feet examined and sometimes it can be a precursor for something that's going on internally and then we cut it off at the pass. Super important. Well, I know that some people want to treat these things at home. Are there things that they can do at home to just kind of maybe ease the pain more, man. I call those people bathroom surgeons of literally they're in their tool chest. They're getting stuff out and really just like trying to help themselves out at home. They'll say all I need is some absence. Salt, dude, everyone is about the absence and you look, that's cool too. I mean, all of that stuff helps. Um It's really when you kind of go and you try to do things that a doctor should do under a sterilized, you know, supervised setting. But yeah, like everyone tries to help themselves out at home and it's ok. I just don't advise some of the bigger stuff like clipping out and in and growing or, you know, different things like that, make sure you get that taken care of in a sterile setting. And now what about, you know, how much your foot health corresponds to like your back and then your alignment and kind of all of those things are really so interconnected. Sure. So this is a big passion of mine because I'm I'm an ex athlete. I was a baseball player in college and I really think everything is interconnected. So really our feet are our body's natural stabilizer and our shock absorber. So if we're protected down there with proper shoes, proper insoles and really get us stabilize from the base, it really helps all the way up from the ankles to knees to hips, to lower back. And I have, I have back issues too, but when I started wearing inserts in the shoes and really taking time to understand why these things were happening. It's our biomechanics. Super, super important. Well, there are some common things that people are doing every day that are wrong. They shouldn't do like wearing high heels too high or running or running flops. Right. I think flip flops are not supposed to be sure. So, I don't do anyone in moderation. You know what I mean? So, like if you're walking around the office or whatever, you're going to an event, you need to wear heels. Fine. Awesome. That's fantastic. If you're wearing sandals, like who's not gonna wear sandals to a beach? Fine. Like I get all that, but everything in moderation don't be trekking through sandals in New York City. Like every single day don't wear heels, you know, down Fifth Avenue every single day when you're walking 20 blocks. Like, try to troubleshoot it, bring a pair of shoes, then wear your heels in the office. Things like that. But it's all ok in, in moderate. Now, are there things that we should be doing? I don't know if this is true. I've just heard that, that you're like, supposed to try to really separate your toes. Is this faker shoes they have, oh, they have those like Yogi toe things that you're supposed to like separate your toes. Does it really work? So, this was a rage a little bit ago. Yeah, there's, there's definitely, you know, thought behind it, but at the end of the day, if it gives you relief for that short term, it's fine, you know, but it's not going to fix or correct anything. It's gonna give you temporary relief for an issue. Maybe like a bunion or hammer toes. It's gonna help separate and relax, kind of like eps and soaks and stuff. It helps for that time. But at the end of the day, you need to get it permanently taken care of. Well, how does someone know when is that time to go to a doctor when it's serious enough? Like, OK, stop. I Yeah. No. And that's a really good question. So just take a bunion, for example, right back in the day, bunions used to be corrected in kind of like a two dimensional plane and just rotated and it was super painful long recovery and it was like fixated with like a couple screws when you go to doctor doctors. Now, the really the trajectory of like surgery and the school of thought it's just changed so much. So you're able to look at something, get it fixed permanently for one time. So you don't go through multiple surgeries down the road. So we're fixing things in now a three dimensional plane versus a two dimensional plane. So it's really, really cool stuff out there and now what stands out to you from the show, like what case do moved you or you know, you felt like was just so incredible. There were a few, I I'll honestly say one that almost brought tears to my eyes. There was a, a graphic novelist and she had six toes. And if you think about it, like having six toes that will affect your life in a variety of different ways with partners just socially and really just the stigma of feeling like you're deformed, right? When, and she was with her husband at the time too. So like when he saw the result, he brought tears to his eyes, brought tears to her eyes and it was just a moving situation. So knowing that you affected someone physically helped them emotionally as well, that's the game changer is the emotional change. So that was a really cool one too. You're changing lives one ft at a time. Oh, man. Sure. I, I'm hoping I'm trying, bro. All right, Doctor Brad Schafer. Thank you so much from the hit T L C show my feet are killing me.