August is Psoriasis Awareness Month and all of us here at Clifton Foot & Ankle Center want you to know that psoriasis is a common disease that can affect your feet. Psoriasis crops up when skin cells grow too fast, creating a buildup of thick, red, itchy patches (plaques) on your skin or nails. It’s considered an autoimmune disease,…

August 17 is National I Love My Feet Day, a holiday perfectly suited for podiatrist Kenneth R. Wilhelm, DPM of Clifton Foot & Ankle Center! Dr. Wilhelm has been caring for feet in Northern Virginia for close to 18 years, so he knows a thing or two about all the different ways you can love your feet. There…

Summer’s such an easy time to eat well: there are farmer’s markets all around Fairfax County where you can pick up fresh blueberries, yellow corn, leafy greens, big red bell peppers or small fiery green ones, and beans plucked from their bushes just this morning. These many-colored foods are a big part of the “healthy…

“Ugly! Ugly, giant bags of mostly water.” Those were the words of an alien life force when it got its first glimpse of a human in a 1988 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Isn’t that just the greatest description of the human body? Well, the “ugly” part is purely in the eye of the…

It can be pretty alarming to look down and see that your feet are puffed up like balloons. Dr. Kenneth R. Wilhelm of Clifton Foot & Ankle Center spells out some of the reasons behind swollen feet and ankles and what you can do about them. Why your feet are swollen When body tissues retain water, they swell up. You might…

If you’re a runner, no doubt you’ve become pretty familiar with having regular aches and pains in various parts of your body. Lifting yourself out of a chair after a long run? – Ouch! Climbing the stairs post-race? – Puh-lease! Muscle soreness is expected. But if pain and soreness linger in your feet or ankles,…

What if you could use your own blood to eliminate pain and promote healing? You can! Dr. Kenneth R. Wilhelm of Clifton Foot & Ankle Center uses an innovative, non-surgical method to treat our patients’ foot and ankle injuries – using the patient’s own blood. It’s called Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) therapy. Dr. Wilhelm uses it to relieve pain and…

Flip-flops: they’re easy to slip on, pretty cheap to buy, and they come in all kinds of patterns. If you want a flip-flop decorated with a selfie-stick wielding gorilla, it’s out there (yes – seriously). Plaid ones, flying pig ones, and those emblazoned on the bottoms with a personal message that you leave in the…

If someone in your family has diabetes, in many ways it’s your disease, too. Whether it’s your child dealing with the daily insulin injections that characterize Type 1 diabetes or a spouse who has to watch what they eat, you are involved with their health care in more ways than you might realize. Your loved one…

Parents: if there was something that you could give your children that would make them… a). improve their school attendance b). perform better in school c). improve their behavior …would it make you stand up and say “I’ll take some of that!”? Well, researchers at the Department of Health and Human Services have determined that…