A step in the right direction: Some treats for the feet

Feet are among the unsung heroes of the physical corpus. They get us where we need to go; they carry heavy loads all day long; they stand up to everything we ask of them.

And sometimes they do it in sadistically designed footwear that rubs, pinches, squeezes, abrades, shreds, and otherwise deforms and injures the only feet we will ever have. Really, it’s time to give those babies some love.

Among the many product lines we explored recently on behalf of feet everywhere, two stood out.

Footcare plus

About 15 years ago, Jeffrey A. Oster, DPM, a podiatrist in Newark, Ohio, and his wife, Thalia, an attorney, decided to make available online consumer resources for what they describe as “medically guided shopping,” an approach designed to support health literacy and self-directed health maintenance. The result was www.myfootshop.com, a site that offers health information, diagnosis assistance, opportunities to videoconference with a board-certified podiatrist, and products designed to relieve numerous foot and ankle troubles.

When they developed a line of locally sourced and environmentally friendly skin-care products for feet, the Osters launched a second website, www.naturalfootcareproducts.com, expressly for consumers searching for natural, organic skin- and foot-care items, including:

• Antifungal Healing Foot Cream, which soothes dry, peeling skin and treats fungal infections of the foot with a therapeutic formulation that includes tea tree oil and lavender oil. The cream absorbs quickly, delivering antibacterial and antifungal agents to prevent irritation, cracking, and painful fissuring. Easy on fragile skin and diabetic-safe, this gentle but powerful product treats athlete’s foot, dermatitis, dry skin, foot odor, injuries and fungal infections of the nail, hyperhydrosis, onychomycosis, sweaty feet, and toe-box dermatitis. It is also indicated for jock itch, diaper rash, and fungal infections in skin folds.

• Diabetic Foot Cream. This product adds 0.025% capsicum to the ingredients of the antifungal cream to treat the symptoms of diabetic peripheral neuropathy.

(Images courtesy of www.naturalfootcareproducts.com)

Newly launched

Novarnica products treat many kinds of pain, including arthritic and rheumatic pain, backaches, lumbago, and tendon and ligament pain. Its new foot-care line launched at the beginning of 2015 with Novarnica Moisturising Foot Relief Cream and Novarnica Foot Pain Reliever Spray. The products will be available any day now at Meijer stores, and will be coming soon to other major retailers. Other Novarnica items can be found at CVS and Meijer, and through Cardinal Health and McKesson. (www.novarnica.com)

(Images courtesy of Novarnica)