The Best Foot Care Tips For Dancers’ Feet, Including Ballet Dancers. Find Out How To Relieve Pain, Strengthen Feet To Avoid Problems And More.

Suffering from dancers’ feet? Dancing is an incredibly enjoyable exercise that offers many health benefits – physical, mental and emotional. It helps to keep your body in shape by reducing fat and toning your muscles, and also increases creativity. But, to get all these health benefits without pain or discomfort, you should take care of your feet.

Feet bear the stress of all those dance moves you love so much. This can lead to fatigue, foot pain and disorders such as hammertoe, bunions and other common problems with dancers’ feet. Here are just a few foot care tips I recommend to my patients and visitors to MyBadFeet.com who are passionate about dancing.

– Wear Proper Footwear
The type of footwear you use is extremely important to the health of dancers’ feet. Of course, footwear for dancers varies depending on the type of dancing. But whether you’re a ballet dancer, a hip-hop dancer or tap dancer, your shoes should fit you properly.

Tight shoes can disfigure your toes, cause foot disorders such as Morton’s neuroma, and exacerbate foot pain. Shoes that are too loose can cause problems such as blisters and force your feet to work too hard. By the way, improperly fitting shoes can also mess up your dance steps. To find the best-fitting footwear, you should have your feet measured while you’re standing, preferably by a podiatrist.

– Eat Well and Stay Fit
Dancers’ feet often suffer from poor circulation and a lack of oxygen, making them more prone to foot cramps and pain. To cope, there is no alternative to eating a balanced diet every day. You should also include foods that boost circulation such as nuts, garlic, cayenne, celery, and watermelon.

– Do Foot Exercises
Strengthening exercises provide a few benefits. They strengthen the muscles of your feet to help you withstand the stress and force all that dancing. Plus, when the muscles of your feet are stronger, they’re less likely to go out of shape an adapt to poor-fitting shoes. Foot exercises also increase your feet’s flexibility, making you less prone to injury.

FOOT PROBLEMS CAUSED BY DANCING
When you know about the different types of problems dancers’ feet are prone to, you can take precautions to prevent them from happening to you. They include:

– Sesamoiditis – caused by dancing on hard surfaces, this is a medical condition of the sesamoids, which are very small bones in the tendons connected to the big toe. Inflammation of these tendons curb motion of the joint and you feel pain under the ball of your foot.

– Hallux limitus or hallux rigidus – stiffness of the big toe caused by the stress that dancing places on the big toe joint. “Limitus” means that motion in your feet will be limited; “rigidus” means there’s no motion. Inflammatory pain is the most common symptom of this foot disorder.

– Bunions (or hallux abducto valgus) – constant force from dancing is responsible for bunions on dancers’ feet. A bunion is a bony extension on the outer edge of the big toe joint, that begins when your big toe starts to lean towards your second toe. Wearing tight-fitting footwear can increase bunion pain.

– Neuromas – impingement of nerve fibers between the toes and metatarsals (five long bones in the foot) causes neuromas dancers feet. This condition causes a burning sensation from the ball of the foot to the toes. Cramping and numbness are also common symptoms of neuromas.

– Plantar fasciitis – caused by overuse of the feet, this is a disorder of the plantar fascia, which is a band of fibrous tissue running from the heel to the base of the toes. Dancers’ feet often suffer from plantar fasciitis, which causes pain and swelling underneath the heel.

TREATMENT OPTIONS
There are numerous home-based and medicinal options to treat dancers’ feet. Massaging the feet with oil or ice, and rest are effective treatments for some foot disorders. Anti-inflammatory medications may also help. However, if you have a severe foot problems, you may require surgery. Consult with your podiatrist as soon as possible if foot problems persist.

Author Bio: MyBadFeet.com is the brainchild of Dr. Maasi J. Smith, founder and director of Rittenhouse Foot and Ankle Associates in Philadelphia and developer of the highly acclaimed, all-natural Dr. Smith’s Foot Care product line. MyBadFeet.com provides a wealth of information to help you better understand foot health and to cope with foot-related disorders including ankle, shin and knee problems.

Category: Medicines and Remedies
Keywords: dancers feet, dancer feet, dancing, foot pain, foot disorders, MyBadFeet.com, Dr. Maasi J. Smith