Saturday, December 27, 2008
FITNESS-New Year’s Resolution
After we enjoy the holiday party season and possibly put on a few pounds, many of us resolve to a new fitness regimen for the new year. Some people even receive fitness equipment from Santa. I’m all for anything that gets people up and moving, Don’t start a walking, jogging or running routine without checking the status of your shoes. Badly worn shoes will lead to blisters and even more serious foot, toe and ankle problems. There are dozens of quality shoes out for everything from tennis, cross training, walking and running. Take some time to find out what shoes are best for you. Just as important are quality socks. I recommend something made with Cool Max, like Wright Socks double layer anti-blister socks. Do some research. It will be time well spent. You can also check my shoe review link on my home page.
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT
I’m extremely pleased and excited to report that I’ve purchased the practice Louis Mahairas D. P. M. Dr. Mahairas decided to move to Florida to be closer to his family and pursue other business interests. Dr. Mahairas assisted me in surgeries at Long Beach Memorial for many years. The great thing for his former patients, is that my office is only two doors down from his old office. I look forward to meeting and treating everyone in the new year.
Holiday Hello
Just a moment to wish everyone the happiest and healthiest of holiday seasons. This is a wonderful time to connect with family, friends and be thankful for the gifts we already have. I look forward to seeing patients, old and new, in 2009 !
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Healthy Toes
Because they're so small and don't look like they do anything important, toes are often overlooked or taken for granted. (except for nail polish) Did you know there are actually simple exercises to keep toes healthy ?
Below is a complete chart and photos to make sure that all those lil' piggies always get to market. http://www.apma.org/s_apma/bin.asp?CID=253&DID=20948&DOC=FILE.PDF
Below is a complete chart and photos to make sure that all those lil' piggies always get to market. http://www.apma.org/s_apma/bin.asp?CID=253&DID=20948&DOC=FILE.PDF
Children's Feet
I examine hundreds of children's feet during the course of the year. Some problems are more serious than others. What I do find that the earlier you diagnose and treat the problem, the higher probability the child will make a full recovery.
Below are some warning signs and possible treatment options. http://www.apma.org/s_apma/bin.asp?CID=252&DID=22767&DOC=FILE.PDF
Pregnancy and Your Feet
Nothing is more amazing than becoming a mother. Unfortunately, the nine months of pregnancy is often tough on a woman's body, which includes the feet.
Below is critical information about what to look for and how to maintain healthy feet. http://www.apma.org/s_apma/bin.asp?CID=252&DID=22768&DOC=FILE.PDF
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Below is critical information about what to look for and how to maintain healthy feet. http://www.apma.org/s_apma/bin.asp?CID=252&DID=22768&DOC=FILE.PDF
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Boots
It's that time of year when stylish boots are part of the fashion scene. Here is a good overview of what to look for when considering buying a pair.
Shortcut to: http://www.apma.org/s_apma/docs/22500/22409.pdf
Shortcut to: http://www.apma.org/s_apma/docs/22500/22409.pdf
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Supplements
Supplements: how much is enough......too much.............what supplements are right for you ?
Q: I want to make sure I’m getting enough vitamin D. I read an article about how spending more time in the sun can raise vitamin D levels and prevent some cancers, but I'm worried about skin cancer. What should I do?
There's no doubt that exposure to ultraviolet radiation, a component of sunlight, is a risk factor for skin cancer. But, as you suggest, the picture has gotten more confusing lately. That's because some studies have linked sun exposure to a lower risk of other types of cancer, including colon, prostate and breast cancers.
Sunlight's possible protection may stem from the fact that when our skin is exposed to ultraviolet radiation, it makes vitamin D, which is essential for strong bones and teeth. (That's why D has been dubbed the sunshine vitamin.) And because vitamin D helps regulate how cells grow and mature, it may also put the brakes on runaway cell growth associated with cancer. There's also evidence to suggest that it improves neuromuscular function.
But vitamin D is relatively scarce in the average diet. To get 400 IU of vitamin D, the current recommended daily amount for people ages 50 to 71, you'd need to eat a 6-ounce can of tuna or drink 4 cups of milk a day. Few people consume that much, and many experts recommend getting significantly more vitamin D -- 800 to 1,000 IU a day.
Casual exposure to sunlight provides a person with most of their vitamin D. Sunlight contains two forms of ultraviolet radiation: ultraviolet A (UVA) and ultraviolet B (UVB). UVB provides the energy the body needs to generate vitamin D. For example, if you sat outside at the equator on a sunny day in the middle of summer wearing only a swimsuit, your body could create 20,000 IU of vitamin D per hour.
But a number of factors affect how much UVB reaches your skin, including the season, the time of day and where you live. Except during the summer months, people who live at latitudes above 37 degrees north or 37 degrees south of the equator don't get enough UVB to make all the vitamin D they need.
Age and skin color play a role, too. Older people can't synthesize vitamin D as well as younger people. In fact, an average 70-year-old can produce only about one-quarter of the vitamin D of a 20-year-old. More melanin, the pigment that gives skin its color, affects the skin's ability to make vitamin D. That's why black Americans have, on average, half as much vitamin D in their blood as whites Americans. Sunscreen use can also influence vitamin D production.
Getting more sun is certainly one way to increase vitamin D levels. But doing so means ignoring the advice to avoid the sun and wear sunscreen to protect against skin cancer (including deadly melanomas) and sun damage, which makes skin look wrinkled and old prematurely. You could also boost levels by eating more foods rich in vitamin D, but just a few foods are natural sources: Salmon, mackerel, sardines and other kinds of oily seafood are about it. In the United States, milk and some brands of orange juice are fortified with vitamin D, as are some breakfast cereals. But you'd have to eat a lot to raise the amount of vitamin D in your blood.
So how can you safely up your vitamin D intake to the often-recommended level of 800 to 1,000 IU a day? For most people, a vitamin supplement is the answer. Most multivitamins contain 400 IU of vitamin D, but you shouldn't just take two. That's because you might get too much of other vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin A and folic acid.
That leaves vitamin D pills. A daily 1,000-IU supplement should take care of your needs. Or, if your usual multivitamin contains some vitamin D but less than 1,000 IU, you can take a separate vitamin D supplement to make up the difference. Don't overdo it, though. Excessive doses of vitamin D can build up to toxic levels, but doses up to 2,000 IU a day are considered safe.
Please contact the office, as we’re happy to help you design a supplement plan right for your body and lifestyle. We offer the premier brand of all natural supplements from Pharmanex.
Q: I want to make sure I’m getting enough vitamin D. I read an article about how spending more time in the sun can raise vitamin D levels and prevent some cancers, but I'm worried about skin cancer. What should I do?
There's no doubt that exposure to ultraviolet radiation, a component of sunlight, is a risk factor for skin cancer. But, as you suggest, the picture has gotten more confusing lately. That's because some studies have linked sun exposure to a lower risk of other types of cancer, including colon, prostate and breast cancers.
Sunlight's possible protection may stem from the fact that when our skin is exposed to ultraviolet radiation, it makes vitamin D, which is essential for strong bones and teeth. (That's why D has been dubbed the sunshine vitamin.) And because vitamin D helps regulate how cells grow and mature, it may also put the brakes on runaway cell growth associated with cancer. There's also evidence to suggest that it improves neuromuscular function.
But vitamin D is relatively scarce in the average diet. To get 400 IU of vitamin D, the current recommended daily amount for people ages 50 to 71, you'd need to eat a 6-ounce can of tuna or drink 4 cups of milk a day. Few people consume that much, and many experts recommend getting significantly more vitamin D -- 800 to 1,000 IU a day.
Casual exposure to sunlight provides a person with most of their vitamin D. Sunlight contains two forms of ultraviolet radiation: ultraviolet A (UVA) and ultraviolet B (UVB). UVB provides the energy the body needs to generate vitamin D. For example, if you sat outside at the equator on a sunny day in the middle of summer wearing only a swimsuit, your body could create 20,000 IU of vitamin D per hour.
But a number of factors affect how much UVB reaches your skin, including the season, the time of day and where you live. Except during the summer months, people who live at latitudes above 37 degrees north or 37 degrees south of the equator don't get enough UVB to make all the vitamin D they need.
Age and skin color play a role, too. Older people can't synthesize vitamin D as well as younger people. In fact, an average 70-year-old can produce only about one-quarter of the vitamin D of a 20-year-old. More melanin, the pigment that gives skin its color, affects the skin's ability to make vitamin D. That's why black Americans have, on average, half as much vitamin D in their blood as whites Americans. Sunscreen use can also influence vitamin D production.
Getting more sun is certainly one way to increase vitamin D levels. But doing so means ignoring the advice to avoid the sun and wear sunscreen to protect against skin cancer (including deadly melanomas) and sun damage, which makes skin look wrinkled and old prematurely. You could also boost levels by eating more foods rich in vitamin D, but just a few foods are natural sources: Salmon, mackerel, sardines and other kinds of oily seafood are about it. In the United States, milk and some brands of orange juice are fortified with vitamin D, as are some breakfast cereals. But you'd have to eat a lot to raise the amount of vitamin D in your blood.
So how can you safely up your vitamin D intake to the often-recommended level of 800 to 1,000 IU a day? For most people, a vitamin supplement is the answer. Most multivitamins contain 400 IU of vitamin D, but you shouldn't just take two. That's because you might get too much of other vitamins and minerals, such as vitamin A and folic acid.
That leaves vitamin D pills. A daily 1,000-IU supplement should take care of your needs. Or, if your usual multivitamin contains some vitamin D but less than 1,000 IU, you can take a separate vitamin D supplement to make up the difference. Don't overdo it, though. Excessive doses of vitamin D can build up to toxic levels, but doses up to 2,000 IU a day are considered safe.
Please contact the office, as we’re happy to help you design a supplement plan right for your body and lifestyle. We offer the premier brand of all natural supplements from Pharmanex.
Kinoki Foot Pads
Greetings everyone. Your favorite podiatrist checking in.........
There isn’t a week that goes by that a patient hasn’t asked about the Kinoki Foot Pads, which “reportedly”, when placed on the bottom of your feet and worn overnight draw toxins from your body.....welllllllllllll not so fast...........
It turns out that Kinoki Foot Pads are a Scam !!
The nice folks at NPR have done us all a favor and taken some used Kinoki foot pads to be tested to see if they'd drawn anything out of a guinea pig reporter's body. Guess what? They didn't.
Reporter Sarah Varney bought some Kinoki foot pads and wore them to bed.She also subjected her husband to the (alleged) detox treatment. In the morning, they both awoke to the stinky brown mess that the advertisement had promised. Not convinced that the brown stuff had actually come from their bodies, our hero took the foot pads to a lab and had them analyzed and compared with unused pads.
"Compared to the blank that's almost identical," said the scientists. "It looks like three of the same sample, basically."
A doctor from UC Berkeley confirms the scam diagnoses. Your body already eliminates "metabolic waste" and "toxins" through, um, other means...
"For many hundreds of thousands of years we've been successfully eliminating them through the usual means, which is urine and feces, and there has been no demonstrated need to accelerate that."
So what is all that gunk in the pad? We're not really sure, but it shows up if you hold the pad over a pot of boiling water. Who knew steam had "metabolic waste"?
There isn’t a week that goes by that a patient hasn’t asked about the Kinoki Foot Pads, which “reportedly”, when placed on the bottom of your feet and worn overnight draw toxins from your body.....welllllllllllll not so fast...........
It turns out that Kinoki Foot Pads are a Scam !!
The nice folks at NPR have done us all a favor and taken some used Kinoki foot pads to be tested to see if they'd drawn anything out of a guinea pig reporter's body. Guess what? They didn't.
Reporter Sarah Varney bought some Kinoki foot pads and wore them to bed.She also subjected her husband to the (alleged) detox treatment. In the morning, they both awoke to the stinky brown mess that the advertisement had promised. Not convinced that the brown stuff had actually come from their bodies, our hero took the foot pads to a lab and had them analyzed and compared with unused pads.
"Compared to the blank that's almost identical," said the scientists. "It looks like three of the same sample, basically."
A doctor from UC Berkeley confirms the scam diagnoses. Your body already eliminates "metabolic waste" and "toxins" through, um, other means...
"For many hundreds of thousands of years we've been successfully eliminating them through the usual means, which is urine and feces, and there has been no demonstrated need to accelerate that."
So what is all that gunk in the pad? We're not really sure, but it shows up if you hold the pad over a pot of boiling water. Who knew steam had "metabolic waste"?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Monday, July 7, 2008
Costa Rica
In May, Los Alamitos Medical Center sponsored and organized the annual physician conference in Costa Rica. Let me tell you, there are WORSE places to hold a conference. What a beautiful island. Tom and I took part in as many "activities" (see photos) as we could--between various medical conferences, of course. My mom and her husband, Paul, also made the journey and totally enjoyed themselves.
WHY NUSKIN?
Over the past 9 months I've become involved with a terrific company called NuSkin/Pharmanex. Just like millions of other baby boomers, I want to stay looking and feeling young-- safely. I don't want to have Botox, collagen injections and other procedures. I realized that I had to find a company that had science behind their products. NuSkin/Pharmanex is that company. I take the vitamins because they absorb better and are standardized with the amounts and quality of the ingredients. I've included a link on my home pageif you're interested in learning more or purchasing any products--http://www.doctorvikki.mynuskin.com/
Sunday, July 6, 2008
Huge Reponse to Recent Antioxidant Screenings
We’ve had a terrific response to our Antioxidant Screenings. Over 30 people have come in during our special evening screenings in May, June and July. Our Pharmanex Scanner measures the carotenoid antioxidant levels in a person’s skin. Checking the body's antioxidant levels is important because the amount of antioxidants maintained in your body is directly proportional to your lifespan. The BioPhotonic scanner score gives a more accurate picture of one's eating habits and lifestyle choices within the last 6-8 weeks. The score may also indicate if the vitamins you're taking are working or being absorbed properly. This non-invasive procedure, takes five minutes and costs just $20. Please call 562-420-9800 to sign-up for the July 16 screenings. You can also register online to doctorvikki.com.
Dr. V PodCast Now Features Info on Ankle Sprains
One of the most common injuries, but often times overlooked, is the sprained ankle. It can be far more serious than you think. In this month’s Dr. V Podcast, Dr. Foley offers her overview. Download today !
Special Olympics Always a “Special Weekend”
With the 2008 Bejing Olympics just weeks away, many people don’t realize that every June the Special Olympics are held at Cal State-Long Beach. For the 6th year, it was my privilege to 
serve asDirector of Fit Feet, which features volunteer doctors who offer free foot treatment and shoe analysis to the hundreds of dedicated athletes. More than 76,000 health professionals and health professions students, inall categories, have volunteered at Healthy Athletes events from 1997-2007. Special Olympics has conducted screenings for more than 689,000 athletes at more than 3,000 events during that time. My involvement with thiswonderful organization has provided me with some of the most emotionally gratifying times of my medical career.
serve asDirector of Fit Feet, which features volunteer doctors who offer free foot treatment and shoe analysis to the hundreds of dedicated athletes. More than 76,000 health professionals and health professions students, inall categories, have volunteered at Healthy Athletes events from 1997-2007. Special Olympics has conducted screenings for more than 689,000 athletes at more than 3,000 events during that time. My involvement with thiswonderful organization has provided me with some of the most emotionally gratifying times of my medical career.
Auri Footwear.com
One of the newest shoe lines creating a major buzz in Hollywood and beyond is Auri Footwear. I’ve been chosen to serve as technical consultant, as this Laguna Beach-based company looks to establish a “foothold” in the competitive shoe industry. The quality and styles offered are outstanding and also feature cutting edge technology. The Auri line features Outlast Technologies, which absorbs excess body heat and releases it to maintain a more constant body temperature which acts as a buffer against extreme temperature that builds up inside footwear, Outlast Technology reduces sweat and keeps feet drier and more comfortable. Check out the informative website, http://www.aurifootwear.com/
Ask Dr. V
If you have a question regarding a foot, toe or ankle injury, you can always e-mail me at drfoley@doctorvikki.com. I can always direct you to general information, but to be specific, I do require you to make an appointment and come in for a full examination. It’s the “ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” theory.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Greetings everyone ! This is my first official blog posting. Wish me luck !
First of all I hope everyone has had an opportunity to fully check out our new website. If you have any comments-good or bad-we want to hear about it. We want to make sure all the technical elements are working, like the streaming video as well as our podcasts. Shoot me an email if you get a minute.
It’s been a busy four months with a nice balance of business and pleasure. My most recent journey took my husband Tom, my mom and myself to Costa Rica. The trip was organized by Los Alamitos Hospital. I’ll file a full report when I get back.
May is shaping up as a busy month as we’re offering Antioxidant Screenings on May 21 and 28, from 5-7 pm at our Long Beach office. The non-invasive screening is only $20 and takes just 15 minutes. It’s afantastic way to find out about your vitamin absorption level and if your vitamins are really helping you. Contact the office if you’re interested in being screened.
In other news, Dr. Richard Graves is now sharing office space with me in Long Beach. Dr. Graves specializes in Sports Medicine and will be seeing patients on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Dr. Graves, aLakewood native, is an avid runner, who still holds a number of track records at Lakewood High. Welcome aboard.
Also, my “never a dull moment”, Mom is retiring at the end of May. Something tells me she still will be around occasionally. At least I HOPE so.
If you get a chance please log onto www.aurifootwear.com and see some truly innovative and stylish footwear. OK, I’m a little biased, the company has hired me to work as a consultant as they design some high quality, cutting edge footwear. Trust me, you won’t see Auri Footwear on everyone at the mall !!!!!
It’s been a busy four months with a nice balance of business and pleasure. My most recent journey took my husband Tom, my mom and myself to Costa Rica. The trip was organized by Los Alamitos Hospital. I’ll file a full report when I get back.
May is shaping up as a busy month as we’re offering Antioxidant Screenings on May 21 and 28, from 5-7 pm at our Long Beach office. The non-invasive screening is only $20 and takes just 15 minutes. It’s afantastic way to find out about your vitamin absorption level and if your vitamins are really helping you. Contact the office if you’re interested in being screened.
In other news, Dr. Richard Graves is now sharing office space with me in Long Beach. Dr. Graves specializes in Sports Medicine and will be seeing patients on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Dr. Graves, aLakewood native, is an avid runner, who still holds a number of track records at Lakewood High. Welcome aboard.
Also, my “never a dull moment”, Mom is retiring at the end of May. Something tells me she still will be around occasionally. At least I HOPE so.
If you get a chance please log onto www.aurifootwear.com and see some truly innovative and stylish footwear. OK, I’m a little biased, the company has hired me to work as a consultant as they design some high quality, cutting edge footwear. Trust me, you won’t see Auri Footwear on everyone at the mall !!!!!
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