Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, more commonly known by her stage name of Lady Gaga, had been on tour around the United States on her “Born this Way Ball.”  Her current tour had grossed approximately $161 Million dollars in 2012 and was well on its way to doing better in 2013.  However, Lady Gaga admitted to injuring herself several months ago during one of her tour stops.

It is unclear when and what she hurt initially, but during her Montreal concert stop, it was obvious that she was in pain and was struggling to do the complex dance moves and choreography required for her show.  It has been reported that she has a hip injury and possibly torn her labrum.  However, Lady Gaga is known for some of her creative high heeled footwear, and she may have some co-existing problems related to ankle sprains.  Gaga said of her injury, “I hid it from my staff, I didn’t want to disappoint my amazing fans. However after last night’s performance I could not walk and still can’t.”  Until further notice, her concerts have been postponed.

• Ankle sprains are one of the most common injuries.  Almost everyone at some in their life has sprained their ankle.  If these sprains occur frequently, you may have some ligament damage, or even damage to the cartilage in your ankle.   In Lady Gaga’s case, there may also be damage to adjacent joints.  If left untreated, irreversible damage may occur making surgery a necessity to avoid chronic pain.

Dr Michael Wiles is a board certified podiatrist that treats ankle sprains and pain everyday. Make an appointment to see him at our Hixson, TN at Advanced Foot Care Centers.  His expertise will get you back on your feet quick.  Hopefully Lady Gaga will get back on her feet soon so her fans will get to enjoy her concerts.

By Dr Ira Kraus

Now that the Super Bowl is over, the majority of the sports world turns its attention to basketball.  The NBA is at about its midpoint of the season.  Although Lebron James has his Miami Heat and Kevin Durant has his Oklahoma City Thunder high in the standings as predicted, there have been a couple of surprises this year.

The Los Angeles Lakers have a long history of success, and they had seemly put themselves into championship contention by acquiring Dwight Howard and Steve Nash this past off season to play with all-stars Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol.  Many analysts had the Lakers going to the NBA finals.  However, things have not gone as planned for them so far this season.  The new players have struggled to mesh with the existing players on the team.

To make matters worse, Gasol has recently suffered a foot injury that will sideline him for 4-6 weeks.  Gasol had been suffering from plantar fasciitis, or inflammation of the plantar fascia, on and off over his career.  The plantar fascia is thick, fibrous ligament of the foot that runs from the heel bone on the sole of the foot to the ball of the foot.  It gives structural support to the foot.  If the ligament is over stressed, pain will be felt if the heel bone is palpated on the sole of the foot, or the inside of the heel bone.  The pain is the worst on first step of the day, or the first step after sitting for prolonged amount of time.  If not adequately treated, this can progress to a tear of the ligament, which is what happened to Pau Gasol.  This is the one of the most common causes of heel pain.

At Advanced Foot Care Centers, we are experts at treating plantar fasciitis.  We aim to keep your feet in great condition.  Call for an appointment at any of our locations in the greater Chattanooga area with Dr Clair Bello, including locations in Hixson and Fort Oglethorpe.

Ankle fractures are very common.  There are many ways to fracture one of your ankle bones, and people have some very creative ways of doing it.   They can happen by simply stepping awkwardly off a curb, or not seeing a ditch in a field.  They can happen from falling off a ladder or getting tackled in a football game.  The mechanisms of injury are endless.

Recently in Australia, a woman found a new way to break her ankle.  She was camping and heard a man deep in a canyon calling for help.  This Good Samaritan first called for help to arrive, but in the meantime took it upon herself to do some of the rescuing.  Being untrained in these types of emergency situations, this woman broke her ankle when she tripped trying to climb down to help this man.  Eventually help arrived and both parties were eventually rescued without any further problems.

At Advanced Foot Care Centers, we have trained foot and ankle surgeons such as  Dr Clair Bello III who is trained in repairing these types of injuries.  Because of the complexity of the ankle joint, it takes a well-trained surgeon to properly evaluate the injury to insure proper care is taken so long term pain and disability can be avoided.  Our two Chattanooga locations make it easy to find help when unexpected injuries occur.  Our Dalton, GA location allows us to help even more people in our neighboring state of Georgia.

Although we encourage helping our fellow human beings in distress, remember that if your ankle is broken, you can’t help anyone.

By Dr Ira Kraus

From our blog, our posts will now show on our Facebook and Twitter accounts.

At Advanced Foot Care Centers, we aim to keep your feet in great condition.  Call for an appointment at any of our locations in the greater Chattanooga area, including locations in Hixson and Fort Oglethorpe.  Dr. Aaron Solomon is one of our outstanding podiatrists trained to help with whatever your ache may be, even if you stepped in some glass, like a tennis superstar recently did.

Serena Williams is an international superstar tennis player.  Despite major health problems and setbacks in recent years, she has managed to stay on top of her sport.  Her most recent accomplishments include winning the 2012 US Open, winning a gold medal at the Olympic Summer Games in London, England this past summer, and was named the WTA player of the year for 2012.  Quite a year for Serena.

However, she recently experienced a minor setback.  In 2010, she inadvertently stepped on some glass and injured both her big toes.  She has been dealing with chronic problems in both toes ever since, which caused her to undergo toe surgery.  The report is not too specific on what was done other than it was “a chronic foot disorder which involved minor procedures on both of her great toes.”

Stepping on glass may seem minor, but little shards of glass can impregnate themselves within the skin.  These pieces of glass can cause to the body to react and form a foreign body reaction.  Luckily, the pieces of glass can be localized with an ultrasound machine and be removed.  If the foreign body is superficial enough, this can be done in the office.  If the object has penetrated deeper, minor toe surgery may be required.  Recovery is quick, and things should be back to normal once the incisions have healed.  Visit our website http://advancedfootcarecenters.com/index.htm to contact one of our locations for appointment.

By Ira Kraus,DPM

We have an extensive blog at http://advancedfootcarecenters.com/blog

For all of those classic rock fans out there, the name Vince
Neil probably means something to you.  He
is the drummer for the classic rock band Motley Crue out of Southern California.  Their songs “Dr Feel good” and “Girls, Girls,
Girls” brought them to fame all through the 80’s and 90’s.  They are currently on tour with the band Kiss
for the rest of the year.

However, during the tour, Neil was on a stage set that had
been changed, which caused him to take an unfortunate fall and break a couple
bones in his foot.  Talk about bad timing
right?  If there is one band member who
needs full use of their feet, it would be the drummer.  Vince’s foot has been confined to a boot and
he has had to use crutches to get around.
Motley Crue has even had to trim back some of their set due to foot injury.  Despite the extreme discomfort, Neil is
hanging tough in order to finish the tour.

Broken foot
bones are no joke.  Depending on their
location, they can be difficult to heal.
If not treated properly with rest and immobilization, they can lead to
breakdown of the foot altogether.  In
podiatry, we tend to name injuries that are particularly common or if they are
destructive if not recognized early.  Two
of these injuries are Jones’ fracture and Lis Franc’s fracture.  If these injuries are explained away as just
an ankle
sprain, these injuries will not heal.
We will discuss these two fractures
in our next post.

Contact Chattanooga
podiatrist Dr.
Ira Kraus with Advanced
Foot Care Centers for an appointment if you have taken a recent fall.

By Ira Kraus,DPM

The popular comedic actress Leslie Mann, most known for her
roles in the movie “The 40 year old Virgin” and “Big Daddy” was in the news
today, but for something a little less glamorous than what she is used to.  At a recent photo shoot, the popular actress
experienced an unfortunate accident as she was jumping while wearing a large
gown.  She landed awkwardly on her foot
and her big toe bent too far backward.
She ended up breaking her toe that required wearing a cast for the
remainder of the photo shoot.

Although most of us do not have routine photo shoots, we
find other, less stylish ways to break our toes.  The most common story behind a broken toe
usually involves getting up in the middle of the night to use the
bathroom.  On the way back to bed, the
dark room seems to mask the bedposts very well, and we seem to walk right into
it more often than not.  Most of these
bumps simply cause a bruise, but they often can break the bones in the
toes.  Consistent pain, swelling, and
blood collection under the toe nail are indicators that the underlying bone may
be broken.

A broken toe can be diagnosed by a simple x-ray.  The doctor will be able to see a sharp edge
to the bone or a distinct line.  Most of
these injuries can be taken care of by limiting the amount of time you are on
your foot.  An immobilizing shoe with a
small splint to assure proper alignment of the toe with follow-up x-rays to
insure healing are all that is needed.
However, if the fracture
goes into the joint, surgery may
be needed to keep the joint working and pain free.

Contact Chattanooga
podiatrist Dr Ira Kraus
with Advanced
Foot Care Centers for an appointment to insure your broken toe is treated
correctly and chronic pain is avoided.

By Ira Kraus, DPM

As we discussed last post, Vince Neil is currently recovering from a broken foot he suffered while on tour with his famous band of the 80’s, Motley Crue.  There are historically two broken bones that can have long recovery periods.  Let’s discuss them.

A Jones fracture is a broken bone at the base of the 5^th metatarsal.  It is named after an English doctor who suffered this injury while dancing at a ball.  If you rub the outside of the foot, you will feel a bony prominence at about the midpoint.  That is the base of the 5^th metatarsal.  There is a tendon that attaches to this part of the bone.  Tendons are very strong, sometimes so strong that they pull off a little piece of bone rather than rupturing.  This is exactly the cause of a Jones fracture.  Due to the lack of blood supply to this area, this bone can heal slower than bone in other places.  For that reason, it is important to work with your podiatrist to know how to best treat this injury.

A LisFranc injury is named after a doctor in Napolean’s army in the 1800s.  This injury often happened with soldiers riding horses whose feet got twisted in the stirrups.  The middle of the foot is similar to a roman arch which depends on a ligament for strength.  If that ligament is broken, it is like removing the keystone out of the arch, which causes it to collapse.  This is a difficult injury to diagnose and is often missed in the emergency room.

Vince Neil has not specified which type of injury he has, but he sent out a picture of his foot.  In any case, any slip or fall should not just be explained away as a sprain.  Contact Chattanooga podiatrist Dr Ira Kraus with Advanced Foot Care Centers for an appointment.

By Ira Kraus,  DPM

Advancements to surgical techniques have allowed doctors to fix problems that previously were unable to be solved.  This has led to longer and better quality of life in hundreds of millions of people.  However, surgery is not benign.  There are many potential risks associated with any surgical procedure, and foot surgery is no exception.  One of the many potential risk is the formation of deep vein thrombosis (DVT), otherwise known as a blood clot.  Let’s discuss some of the ways to reduce the risk of forming a DVT.

Before we get too far along, it is important to know that blood clots after foot surgery are very uncommon.  That being said, it is still important to know what can be done to reduce the risk of blood clot formation and how to treat them, since they can have life threatening effects.

Unfortunately, there are some risk factors that we cannot change which increase the risk of DVTs.  Older people tend to be at greater risk than younger people.  Women also are more likely to have a DVT when compared to men.  If you inherited a blood clotting disorder, or something like that runs in your family, you also have increased risk of DVT.  These risk factors cannot be changed, but it is important that you understand their significance before surgery.

Fortunately, there are several risk factors that can be modified so the risk of DVT is lessened.  Obesity, sedentary lifestyle, and use of tobacco are all associated with increased DVT risk.  Specifically with foot surgery, being confined to a bed or wheelchair will immobilize your leg, which decreases blood flow and can increase the risk of DVT.  Thankfully, all of these risk factors can be addressed.  Before surgery, if a person was able to lose weight, increase their activity, and temporarily refrain from using tobacco products before and after the procedure, their risk of DVT would dramatically decrease.

Now that we understand the risk factors associated with blood clots, we will discuss in the next post how to recognize the signs and symptoms and appropriate treatment.