Picture this: a 66-year-old athlete goes to the doctor complaining of ankle pain. This woman runs considerable distances every week and says she’s participated in 14 triathlons in the last few months. The doctor takes some x-rays and finds severe ankle osteoarthritis. He cannot believe the x-rays he took correspond to this person who can still…

At Clifton Foot & Ankle Center, we see a fair number of lumps and bumps on people’s feet. A lump or bump that hurts, swells up, or oozes pus needs our attention. Visit our Fairfax County podiatry office so the doctor can help with further attention. But what of other bulges, skin lesions, or bony knobs that aren’t…

A bunion is a deformity of the joint at the base of your big toe. It looks like a bony bump jutting outward. There can be redness, swelling, tenderness, and difficulty bending the joint. The tendency to form a bunion is usually inherited.  Still you can inadvertently speed up the process by wearing shoes that are too…

Foot blisters rarely take us by surprise. You’re out for a hike, and pressure from your new boots turns the back of your heel a troublesome shade of red. You know you’re close to getting a blister. Or you pull off your running shoes at the end of a race and find the source of that aching…

Every action has a reaction. If you ask your mom 117 times a day if you can get a new iPhone, the chances are good she’ll lash out at you at #118 – or sooner. And just as you can rub your mom the wrong way, you can unintentionally rub the bones of your feet…

We’re realists here at Clifton Foot & Ankle Center. We realize most people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about their foot health. Luckily, we’re here to remind our Fairfax County patients that April is Foot Health Awareness Month! It’s easy to increase your awareness of your feet and learn how to keep them healthy. Just…

With March Madness coming to another exciting end, you may have a child who’s expressed an interest in playing basketball. Good for them. Basketball gets the heart and muscles pumping, helping to keep kids in good shape. Unfortunately, the game also has a pretty high incidence of injuries to the feet and ankles. We usually see…

Most senior citizens experience some foot pain. It’s no wonder: by the time you turn 80, you’ve walked about 110,000 miles. You’d have to walk from our podiatry office in Centreville, Virginia, to Lower Manhattan and back 183 times to go 110,000 miles. And that’s just the average person. If you’re regularly active, you see a lot more…

Everybody emerges from the womb with flat feet. If we’re lucky – and most of us are – we’re blessed with arches sometime before our third birthday or so. Arches in your feet serve an important purpose: they help keep your weight evenly balanced. Each time you take a step, the muscles, bones and soft tissues…

Many women choose to wear high heels – and that’s okay. As a board-certified podiatrist, however, Dr. Kenneth R. Wilhelm cautions women to be smart about it. Wearing high heels comes with many challenges. Interestingly, “Choose to Challenge” was the theme for this year’s International Women’s Day, celebrated earlier this week on March 8. “A challenged world is an…