Your feet are incredibly durable, yet fragile parts of your body, and we tend to take them for granted until a painful or debilitating foot or ankle problem sends us to the podiatrist. Your feet weather everything from ankle sprains to warts with often amazing resilience, so take good care of your feet and make regular visits to see your foot care professional to maintain optimum foot and ankle health.

Five fascinating foot facts that you may not know include the following:

• Most people have feet that are not the same size—Make sure when you go shopping for new shoes, that you try them both on. Your feet can vary as much as a half size apart, so make sure your shoe choice is based on the larger foot. Some shoe companies are now offering individually sized footwear so you can have a different size on each foot that fits perfectly.
• A quarter of all the bones in your body are in your feet—Each foot contains 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 tendons, muscles and ligaments
• Females have more foot problems than males—Women who wear tight-fitting shoes like high heels have almost four times more foot and ankle problems. Many women are ditching the pumps, so these numbers are thankfully coming down for conditions like hammertoes, bunions, arch, and heel pain.
• 8000 steps per day—Every reasonably active person takes between 8000 and 11,000 steps per day. That’s enough to walk all the way around the Earth four times in just one year.
• The bones in your feet take a while to fully develop—From your time of birth, the bones in your feet and ankles can take over eighteen years to fully mature.

For any foot or ankle pain, you may be experiencing see your foot care professional for proper diagnosis and treatment. Call Syracuse Podiatry located in East Syracuse, New York. Dr. Ryan L. D’Amico, Dr. Kathleen Pyatak-Hugar, and Dr. Donal M. Erickson and their staff will help you diagnose and treat your foot or ankle condition. Call 315-446-3668 or make an appointment online today.