Vegetables and Biomechanics extremly exciting stuff.

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Hi all,

I am new to pod area. I have been a pod for almost 5 years now. Before doing Podiatry I worked as a farmer, mostly growing vegetables and provising produce to local supermarkets. I am almost in my 50s but want to contribute something useful to the industry.

Many of you may find this post a bit wacky and please be assured that I have not practiced any of these techqniues on members of the public. I am still involved in preliminary studies and only have a few participants which are close friends or members of my family.

I am working on an already established theorem. As you are aware they are already well established members of the Biomechanics community and it is not my intention to undermine there work. I am also serious about what I am saying.

As somone who has grown vegetables for many years I wanted to try and combine there uses in doing something fun related to podiatry. Many of my friends have found this amusing but it has also served the basis of providing them with good custom orthotics in a fun way. This brings me on to what I have been working on. As you know for years Podiatrists have been using - non-weightbearing methods to make ridgid orthotics. Firstly, there is the attempt to establish the talus neutral position. This appraoch can accomodate significant structural deformities, but claims of rigid control have bot been validated and the reliability of mesaurements with the foot in the air have been questionable.

Anyway to get to the point I have been using vegtables to establish the sub talus neutral postion. The way in which I do this is to use a bit of wood which is shaped as a foot. I then measure the foot and once I have established the size and the midline of the foot I apply a carrot and apply 6n of force. This has produced startling results and actually get the foot into the sub talus neurtal postion. As I said before there is various ways of achieving this but I am sure that this is the first time it has been done with vegtables. I am also working on other areas of biomechanics and will present more of my finindgs as I gain more particpants. Will keep you all updated.

 

George,

Please keep us updated! Sounds fantastic. I often find I have a glut of different vegtables from my graden at certain times of the year, and this sounds like a good use for this.

I was actually a mouse farmer previously, and i've been using different size mice to support the arch to establish sub talar joint neutral with startling results also! Startling for the mice, that is.


Phil

 

Hi,

Thank you for your reply. yes, its amazing what uses itiems can have when one turns there attention to detail. I am intrigues about using mice. Surlely that would not be ethical?

The carrot has definatly works how I described it in my first post. If you wanted to go totally organic I am sure you could design some sort of arch surpport out of vegetable matter. Will keep you posted. i intend to put some pics up once I get access to the internet a bit better!

 

I too, have considered mouse therapy but probably rats would be more effective if the shoes could accommodate them. My theory is that the old Whitman brace worked on the principle of causing a painful stimulus to the longitudinal arch. The patient, in avoiding the stimulus would supinate the foot with a resulting correction in gait. How much better would it be using rats? Obviously, as pressure came on the creatures they would bite, with much the same result. Added to this, they would make nice furry playmates when unshod, and when, sadly they reached the end of their natural span, the skins could be made (along with others) into a nice warm pair of socks for the winter - this Phil, is where it scores over the mouse since you would not need so many to sew into socks.

This is not to say that I reject carrots. However, I am concerned that the rats might eat them with devastating results to the patient.

Have you tried beetroot George? I'm not too sure of the rigidity issue but the colouration of the foot would be nice.

Bill

 

Bill,

I would agree that rats would probably be a very useful alternative, particularly for those with a medially deviated subtalar joint axis and high supination resistance.

George,

You should consider mangos. A well placed, over ripe mango in the medial longitudinal arch would be a very effective therapeutic tool.

Phil