5 Proven Methods to Prevent and Help Arthritis in Your Feet

Waking up everyday with stiff and painful joints in your feet and ankles can ruin your entire day. With each passing day as you get older, it can worsen if left untreated. This is often the case with arthritis; though it can affect any part of the body through age or injury, if it attacks the feet, your mobility and balance will be severely restricted.

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Your feet provides a solid foundation for your entire body, so it’s vital to slow the development of arthritis in them. Follow these 5 proven and effective methods to prevent and help arthritis in your feet and ankles (without expensive surgery or drugs with dangerous side effects).

1. Separate and Straighten Your Toes

Joint stiffness, aches and pains in the toes is a fairly common trait in sufferers of arthritis. Since there are many bones in the toes and they’re always under pressure, it’s easy for the joint cartilage to sustain “wear and tear” damage. As a result, inflammation and swelling occurs because there’s no protective cartilage to stop the bones from rubbing against each other.

There’s an effective solution to stop this from happening...

By wearing a pair of gel toe separators throughout periods of the day or night, it helps to spread out the toes to prevent the joints from rubbing together. Though it cannot regenerate soft tissue that has already been damaged, it will however prevent further damage to the cartilage, thus slowly but surely strengthen your toes again.

If you also have overlapping toes, whether as a result of arthritis or not, this is an even bigger cause for concern. We highly recommend you to try out our DuraFlex Gel Toe Separators which provides enough space and breathing room for your toes.

2. Elevate Your Feet

If your toes, feet and ankles are visibly swollen as a result of your arthritis, then one of the simplest ways of reducing the swelling is to elevate your feet.

The general rule is to have your feet raised higher than your heart when you’re laying down. You can do this by simply resting your feet on a bed wedge or a couple of pillows when you sleep.

If you’re either at work or sitting down, even a slight elevation can make a big difference, so find a way to prop your feet up on a small stool or foot rest while having your legs outstretched as much as possible.

Even if you’re not in any pain, swollen feet makes it difficult to put footwear on and if left untreated, it could eventually lead to skin discolouration, stiff joints, weight gain and even more aches and pains.

3. Wear the Correct Footwear

Wearing tight footwear that constricts your feet is a massive hindrance to the health of your feet. Many of us will immediately notice if a pair of shoes are uncomfortable, and there are some other signs that you’re wearing the wrong footwear.

• You should have enough room to wiggle your toes because your feet can swell throughout the day, making a snug fit even tighter.

• After a long day on your feet, you end up with superficial injuries such as bruises, blisters and calluses. Those are signs that your footwear is not contoured properly to your feet. This can eventually lead to joint pain, bunions, overlapping toes, arthritis (or worsening of it) and other foot problems.

• Your shoes are too big and there’s not enough support, causing you to instinctively tighten the muscles at the bottom of your foot to prevent your shoes from coming off. This action will eventually lead to heel pain (commonly known as plantar fasciitis).

Hammer toes (claw like toes), overlapping toes, bunions (big lump at the side of the big toe) and heel spurs (growth on the underside of the heel bone) are common traits of wearing the wrong footwear. It will certainly lead to or worsen arthritis in your feet, and it’s something that can be easily avoided.

4. Massage Your Feet

Massage treatment doesn’t have to be an expensive luxury. If you do decide to get a foot massage treatment outside, make sure that you go to an experienced company that’s renowned for massage therapy and physiotherapy. They may be costly but well worth the money.

There are many beauty and spa facilities that offer massage treatments but they’re mostly lacking in quality due to inexperience.

If you prefer, you can always massage your feet from the comfort of your own home. This requires a manual foot roller (see number 5) or an electric foot massager. Though costly, we recommend the circulation boosters from Revitive, which uses Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) technology to help reduce swollen ankles and feet by improving blood circulation around the legs.

5. Get Your Feet Active Again

Suffering from arthritis is stressful and frustrating, and it often renders you out of action. However, it doesn’t mean your feet has to remain inactive.

By rolling your feet over a large foot roller, it’ll help to increase blood flow and get the muscles around your feet, ankle and legs active again; even if you are bound to a chair.

There are different types of foot rollers and they’re all designed to essentially do the same thing – relieve foot aches, cramps and pain. However, the amount of practical and well designed foot rollers are few and far between.

What to look out for:

• An elevated foot roller that has enough height so to prevent any part of your feet from touching the floor. Not only is this a remedy for tired and aching feet, it can also help to reduce swollen feet and ankles.

• A foot roller with hard massage points to effectively massage the entire sole.

• If you’re getting a single foot roller, large wheels with good grip is necessary in order for the roller to actually roll on any type of surface instead of sliding.

• Smooth rollers that aren’t either too rigid or too loose

• Whether it’s a double or single foot roller, you need a wide surface area to massage the entire soles of your feet.

At Feet&Feet, our single and double foot rollers have gone through an attentive research and development process that has resulted in aesthetically pleasing and highly functional products.

• Travel Revive Foot Roller Massager – Our single foot roller is durable, functional and ideal for travelling. It has a wide enough surface for two small feet or one large foot, and its large firm grip rubber wheels ensures a smooth roll on any surface.

• Home Revive Foot Roller Massager – Constructed from high quality cherry wood and has 5 smooth rollers for each foot, all having uniform massage points on each roller. A wide surface area ensures suitability for small and large feet, and the elevated platform provides more comfort.

A useful tip if you have arthritis is to wear gel toe straighteners whenever you use a foot roller because it helps to stop your toes seperated when you’re exercising. This is very important because if your toe joints rub together, it causes damage to the cartilage, the cushioning between the bone joints.

It’s important to exercise your feet regularly when you have arthritis to avoid further stiffness of the joints and to also strengthen the foot muscles and arches; vital to balance and stability.