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We had a great time at our holiday party in December, and we enjoyed the mild winter weather. Now, Winter Storm Jonas will change all of that.

The chaos is forecasted to begin Friday afternoon and last for possibly 36 hours into Saturday evening. The accumulation predictions for the DMV area range from 12 to 25 inches with possible Blizzard conditions, meaning snow/sleet with winds reaching 35+ mph and visibility less than ¼ mile.

Before Jonas hits be sure your home is prepared with the following materials

1. medical supplies – all your prescriptions are filled and a basic first aid kit is handy
2. Water – fill your tubs to be able to flush your toilet or bathe. Keep bottled water around to drink, cook, and brush your teeth
3. Flash Lights – in case power goes out, you should have one by your bed side and the front door
4. Batteries – various battery types for radios, flash lights, and handheld games
5. Cell phone crank charger – to contact help if necessary

And for your Car

1. Blankets – wool blankets or space blankets
2. Flashlight – if you need to get out of your car to remove snow
3. Small Shovel – to help remove snow piles from around the car
4. Jumper cables – for yourself or others
5. Non-perishable food – granola bars and water bottles
6. Fill your tank – don’t get caught on an empty tank and stuck in winter traffic

To keep yourself safe while walking in icy conditions, always make sure your shoes have good traction, your hands are out of your pockets (in case you fall), and you tread carefully.

For an increased grip on your shoes I recommend YAKtrax, or for something with more grip use STABILlicer’s ice cleats.

If falling incidents occur regardless of dangerous conditions, then you may benefit from Moore Balance Braces, Richie Braces, or physical therapy. These braces are custom made to each patient to control ankle movement and increase stability while walking. Physical therapy will work on flexibility, range of motion, and muscle strengthening.

I hope everyone is prepared for the looming storm and won’t hesitate to schedule an appointment with your favorite podiatrist here at Frederick Foot & Ankle if you do happen to have an unfortunate trip or fall.

Stay Warm!

By Coralia Terol

New Year, New You

45% of American’s make resolutions each New Year, but a staggering 73% ditch their resolution before they see it through to completion.

Here are some helpful hints that could make for a successful 2016

1. Break up your Goal – Cut up your goal in to manageable chunks that you achieve step by step. If you are trying to drop weight cut up your goal into weekly weigh-ins. If you aim to lose one pound per week, then by the end of the year you have lost 52 pounds.

2. Set aside time to achieve your goal – If you are trying to spend more time with your family, block off time on your calendar for dinner every Wednesday night. Write it down every week on your calendar and send an invite to the potential attendees, so there is no conflicting arrangement.

2. Ask for a friends help – Trying to eat healthier? Buddy up with someone else with the same goal in mind. Meet with a friend to meal prep with for the week or to swap healthy recipes with.

3. Make your goals known – Post, write down, or tell your friends about your new goals. Putting your resolutions down on paper or telling others makes you more accountable and serves a reminder.

4. And for all of our tech savvy people – enlist the help of an app. Some apps that may be helpful are:

Evernote claims to help you “remember everything.” This app will send you e-mail reminds, allow you to make to-do lists, and help you organize online clippings, such as workout routines or recipes.

Mint is a website and app to track you spending and income. The app will bring together all of your accounts in one place for easy viewing and help you stick to a budget.

Habitbull helps you break a bad habit and hopefully replace with a good habit. Instead of smoking that next cigarette, meditate for 10 minutes. This app will track your patterns and moods and asses at what times you may want to partake in your bad habit again.

Curiosity allows you Videos on your selected topics will help educate you for 2016. If you don’t have time for the videos there are fact sheets and info graphs.

My goal this year is to try to read 1 new book a month. Try an app like Wattpad, which gives you access to over 100,000 titles to read at your leisure.

For 2016, my advice to all of our readers are related to healthier feet: wear supportive shoes, moisturize feet each night, avoid walking barefoot, and have your feet evaluated by a podiatrist every year.

By Alvin Bannerjee

To help alleviate current pain and combat future ailments there is a simple way that we often forget to accompany with our daily routine. Simple stretches for 5 to 10 minutes each morning will truly go a long way. Most of us use our feet daily and rely on them to perform tasks which should be reason alone for us all to be better stewards of our feet and ankles.

Do you know what stretching can do for you?

• Keeps muscles, ligaments, and tendons in working order and able to accommodate different terrains and activities without causing harm.
• Releases muscle tightness
• Improves physical activity in sports and daily activities but increasing your range of motion and balance
• Increase blood flow to your muscles with dynamic stretching, which in turn increases body temperature
• Decrease stress by giving your mind and body a break
• Improve posture by aligning your muscles and joints

Now when performing your stretching at home remember to breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth to provide your muscles with needed oxygen. Hold each stretch for 30 to 60 seconds and refrain from bouncing to avoid tearing soft tissue. It is important that you don’t stretch yourself to the point of pain but slightly past your normal range of motion, the amount you stretch will slowly increase over time. If you are new to stretching and exercising self-massage the area first to loosen some initial tension.

To aid in your recovery with your lower extremities Frederick Foot & Ankle has compiled special stretches to help with your foot and ankle pain. If needed our wonderful staff in Frederick, MD or Urbana, MD can show you how to perform your stretches.

Don’t worry I won’t expect you to be as flexible as my adorable daughter (pictured above).

By Danielle Watson

This past weekend was the Reebok 2015 CrossFit Games. Katrin Tanja Davidsdottir and Ben Smith were named the Fittest Woman and Man on Earth, respectfully! If you aren’t as familiar with CrossFit as some of us here at Frederick Foot & Ankle, just follow along as I break it down.

Over the past few years, CrossFit has grown into a nationwide craze. Basically, CrossFit exercises are daily, high intensity, technical workouts. Each workout of the day (WOD) consists of varied functional movements which are performed at a high intensity pace. WODs are designed to push your body to its limits by enabling you to go as hard and as fast as possible. With this in mind, two images pop into my head: extremely “fit” athletes and extremely “injured” athletes.

Typical CrossFit athletes are extremely competitive, whether they are former college professional athletes and/or driven fitness enthusiasts. Treating CrossFit injuries can be somewhat of a challenge. Many treatment plans include immobility and rest for proper recovery, which is not the typical nature of a CrossFit athlete. CrossFit WODs use an entirely different day-to-day approach than major lifting (deadlifts, cleans, squats), basic gymnastics (pull-ups, push-ups, handstands), and cardio (running, swimming, biking). This means participants are more likely to develop injuries such as stress fractures, ligament sprains, and muscle strains. If you or someone you know is interested in starting a CrossFit regime, don’t hesitate to stop by our office for a foot and ankle examination. We want to make sure your feet are in the best shape before you start your training. We have two offices located in Urbana, MD and Frederick, MD.

By Coralia Terol

After the World Cup celebrations were all said and done, it wasn’t all fun and games for Alex Morgan. The U.S. Women’s national team forward recently underwent right knee surgery. They performed a minor arthroscopic procedure, cleaning the joint of all debris and excess fibrous scar tissue. Similar procedures can be done by our local podiatrist to clean the ankle joints of arthritic fibers. These fibers in the joint can cause a “tight” feeling, or restrict movement in your ankle.

Morgan’s minor procedure will likely put her on the sideline for three weeks or more. This will hopefully give her enough recovery time before the USWNT kicks off their World Cup Victory Tour in August. It is important to listen to your physician when discussing rest and recovery time. Morgan played in the World Cup with a left knee contusion and was unable to give it her best for five out of the seven matches. Before, in 2014, she injured her left ankle which left her with a lasting injury, restricting her playing capability permanently. There were speculations that she didn’t recover for the proper amount of time before hitting the practice field, which might end up jeopardizing her career in the long run. This is an example of why it is important to listen to your doctor when they tell you to rest and recover.

If you or anyone you know has recurring foot or ankle injuries, Frederick Foot & Ankle would love to discuss the issue and evaluate the problem. It is important to get proper treatment so that you can be on the road to recovery. Come visit us at either our Urbana, MD office or our Frederick, MD office, our Doctors and staff are here to help.

By Alvin Bannerjee

The two months between graduating podiatry school and starting residency come and go in a flash. Thousands of new doctors graduate from podiatry school and start their journey to becoming a certified doctor. In order to complete these final steps to becoming a Podiatrist, each graduate must participate and complete their long and torturous residencies.

One of our staff members recently graduated podiatry school and is doing her residency in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In residency, graduates work in hospitals doing and learning about the jobs they will have after they are certified. Graduates take care of patients around the clock and help run hospitals alongside the senior Doctors. You are at the hospital so much that you essentially become a “resident” of the hospital, like many of the patients in your care.

July 1st was the official start date for Jackie, our graduate, orientation started slow and quickly progressed. She described her first couple weeks there as being bombarded with pagers that no one knew how to work, important ext. numbers that no one remembered, and getting little sleep. On top of learning how to cope with a new and difficult lifestyle graduates must learn very quickly how to translate what they have been studying for the past four years into real life and apply it to real patients.

A typical day in residency starts at 4-4:30am, this is so doctors can make their rounds and see all their patients by the time morning meeting starts. Making rounds on patients means while checking on your patient you evaluate the progression of their problem, whether its infections, post-surgery, or trauma. After concluding whether the patient’s condition is worsening or improving, you write a note on the patients chart summarizing your assessment, their prognosis, and your plan of treatment.

The particular program Jackie is in sees a lot of foot and ankle trauma. For instance, if you google “The most dangerous intersection in America” the #1 result is within the hospital’s limits. Being stationed in Philadelphia Jackie sees all sorts of traumas, this past weekend our podiatry service saw two pediatric ankle fractures, two open fractures where the bones were showing, and a polytrauma from a motorcycle accident.

Nevertheless, residency is a part of every podiatrist career. It is where we are tested on what we have learned from school and how we cope with the new information we learn each day. If you or anyone you know are interested in podiatric medicine, feel free to come visit us either in our Frederick office or our Urbana office. One of our amazing doctors at Frederick Foot & Ankle would love to help answer any questions you may have about podiatry or what it is like to be a podiatrist.

By Brenna Steinberg

This past Sunday, the US Women’s soccer team won the title of World Cup Champions. Carli Lloyd was the girl to beat, within the first sixteen minutes of the World Cup Final she showed Japan who was boss, and set the tone for her team-mates and the rest of the game. The game ended in a dramatic victory for the US Women’s national team, with a winning score of five to two. Many of us here at Frederick Foot & Ankle attended viewing parties to watch the final live and enjoyed partying and celebrating alongside the victorious World Cup Champions.

However, the party did not stop there for the Women’s team. After returning back to the United States, the World Cup team stopped in New York City where they were greeted by thousands of fans and presented with individual keys to the city. The team then participated in a victory parade through the city streets and continued the winning celebrations.

Taylor Swift invited the team to come celebrate with her on stage at MetLife Stadium! How cool is that?

All of these talented women must maintain healthy feet and ankles in order to continue their careers, they understand the importance of having pains and concerns looked at by a professional Doctor or Podiatrist. If you or anyone you know has any foot or ankle pain please do not hesitate to visit us at either our Urbana, MD or Frederick, MD office. After all, we want to keep you moving this upcoming soccer season, who knows you might be the next Alex Morgan or Carli Lloyd!

By Nikki Ho

Everyone here at Frederick Foot & Ankle wishes you a wonderful 4th of July weekend! However, we wanted to give you a few reminders so you can keep your feet happy and healthy this summer! To do this we made a holiday survival guide for you and your feet.

Frederick Foot & Ankle Fourth of July Survival Guide

Avoid walking barefoot. Many of us enjoy being barefoot during the summer. There is nothing quite like the feeling of sand between your toes, or grass beneath your feet, but being barefoot increases your chances of wounds and infections. If a wound is not treated properly infections can spread and cause limb loss, or permanent damage to nerves, muscles, tendons, or bones. This is why, if you are experiencing any discomfort or abnormal pain contact a medical professional. To help prevent such wounds or injuries from occurring, we recommend wearing closed toe shoes and cleaning your feet after being outside.

Another tip for this Fourth of July, be careful while handling fireworks. Thousands of burns occur every Fourth of July due to fireworks. These burns usually occur on our extremities such as our hands, legs, and feet. A severe burn can cause trauma and damage to the affected area and needs immediate care. A burn of a high degree could lead to permanent damage and should be treated accordingly.

So please, be careful this holiday weekend and think of your feet! If you sustain a minor injury that does not need immediate care and would like to discuss your problem with a healthcare professional, don’t hesitate to come visit us at one of our offices in Urbana, MD and Frederick, MD. Have a wonderful Fourth of July!

By Yenisey Yanes

It has been a long and emotional time for those following the Boston Marathon Bomber trial. This has been a sensitive subject for many involved in the running community, including us here at Frederick Foot & Ankle. On that fatal day, many of our peers and friends were volunteering in the medical tents at the finish-line, where the bombings took place. Their simple medical tents were equipped for the usual post-marathon podiatric complaints, but no one was prepared for what would take place. The small medical tents soon became a triage area for 1st responders. What they saw and experienced has been described similarly to what one would see in a “war zone”.

The devastation we felt on April 13, 2013, not only affected the city of Boston and the running community, but also the Podiatric community. Many Boston residents felt unsafe living in the city they had lived in all their lives. Many Runners became fearful of competing in big name marathons, and medical volunteers were now fearful for their safety at large events. However, despite these fears, all of those affected by this tragic event have rallied together to rebuild what was taken from us.

On May 15, 2015, suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged guilty, and on June 24th sentenced to death. After the formal sentencing, Tsarnaev broke his silence stating, “If there is any lingering doubt, let there be no more. I did it, along with my brother”. Once Tsarnaev confessed, many felt a wave of emotion at the conclusion of this high profile trial and relief that justice would now be served.

With the conclusion of the trail, the community at large has come together, both new and experienced runners to not only participate in the next marathon, but to remember and pay tribute to those who were lost in 2013. If you are in need of a training partner or a podiatrist to get your feet and ankles healthy for a race, don’t hesitate to come visit us at one of our offices located in Urbana, MD and Frederick, MD.

By Danielle Watson

This year Frederick Foot & Ankle were lucky enough to send one of our staff members up to Boston to volunteer in the finishers tent of the 119th Boston Marathon, this past Monday on April 20, 2015. It is always nice to volunteer and give back to your community, however with the events that occurred in 2013, last Monday was extraordinary.

This year the Boston Marathon was extra special, the crowds came out to show their full support for the runners, race, and the city of Boston. This year some of the survivors of the bombings of 2013 came not only as an honoree, but also to participate as a runners in the marathon.

Rebekah Gregory was there in 2013, she stood at the finish line cheering on her mother-in-law when the tragic events took place. Two years later and after 35 surgeries, including the amputation of her left leg, she was again in Boston to “take her life back”. It was an emotional time watching her cross the finish line.

The Boston Marathon is more popular than ever, it is now considered a way for people all over the world to show their support. Thousands of people from all over the country and internationally trained tirelessly to meet qualifications and to run this past Monday. However, many were not prepared for the unfortunate weather that struck Boston on race day. The high was 57 degrees Fahrenheit with cold rain starting at 10 am.

Most runners mentally and physically prepared for the 26.2 mile course but they were not equipped for the wind and cold rain that started falling in the late morning. Many of the runners in the medical tents weren’t there for your normal post-race injuries, they were in search of medical attention due to hypothermia risks. Hypothermia can occur when your core body temperature drops below a certain level and can put you at risk for severe medical problems. Make sure when you are preparing for a race out of town you pack layers and prepare for all types of weather conditions.

Frederick Running Festival May 2 & 3

Will you be joining us in the Frederick Running Festival this weekend? We hope to see you out on the course either running with us, cheering the runners on, or at the running festivals expo. And if on the course you have any foot or ankle injuries, one of our amazing podiatrist from Frederick Foot & Ankle will be volunteering at the medical tent, or you can come and visit us at either of our locations in Urbana, MD or Frederick, MD. We can’t wait to see you, and remember to dress appropriately for race day!

By Alvin Bannerjee