Oh, the wondrous and blissful side effects that come along with getting older. Remember when you used to stay up to watch Letterman every night or how you could eat nothing but pizza and chicken Mcnuggets seven days a week? What about the days when you could run a half marathon after a full day of work? Now, if you’re like middle-aged Americans, you can barely make it up to see primetime television, you’re on a strict low-fat, low-sodium, and even lower taste diet, and every time you so much as walk to the car in the morning, there is a nagging and downright debilitating pain in the arch of your foot.

Well, other than increasing your caffeine intake, which has its own set of problems, there’s not a lot we can do about staying up later at night. As far as pizza and chicken Mcnuggets goes, maybe it’s not such a bad thing that you can’t gorge yourself on that stuff anymore. There are, however, a few things you can do to avoid that nasty pain in your feet, which is probably caused by fallen arches and plantar fasciitis.

• Warm Up and Cool Down – Follow the guidelines for a healthy stretching routine. If you don’t know how to properly go about this, ask your Livonia podiatrist. Heck, even a simple Google search will give you some results. Alright, we will make it easy for you, click here for a couple ideas.
• Wear Supportive Footwear – Spend the money it takes to get proper fitting and quality footwear with good arch supports. Most sufferers of fallen arches and plantar fasciitis are born with high arches that sag as they get older. Good footwear can prevent this from becoming a problem. Flat feet, however, can become just as problematic. So, really we should all be wearing good footwear to avoid this potentially painful condition.
• Take It Easy – If your heel starts to hurt, take a rest. If the pain doesn’t go away after several days of resting, it may be time to see a podiatrist.
• Orthotics – Special insoles to support the arch of the foot can provide some much needed help. You can buy these at your local drugstore (not recommended), or you can have them specially made and custom fit for your feet. It can take a while to get just the right one for your foot, but sometimes it can be just what you needed.
• Weight Control – Yes, maintaining a sensible diet with your ideal weight can be beneficial in many ways. It makes sense to think that the more weight your arches are supporting, the more easily they will fall and become painful.

If you are able to successfully recover from the pain of fallen arches with these five tidbits or any other methods, go ahead and treat yourself to an evening of Letterman and pizza. Stay away from the Mcnuggets though. After all, let’s be reasonable about it.