Home Invasion Victim Pleads for Help by Typing With Toes

Tied to her bed by a gun-wielding masked intruder, an Atlanta woman was able to summon help using her feet to type messages to her boyfriend.
Woman tied to her bed by a burglar used her toes to type a message for help.

It was a stroke of genius, and definitely a stroke of luck, that led police to find Amy Windom after she had been spent hours screaming for help.

Windom, 39, was was sound asleep when the armed robber broke into her home Tuesday around midnight.

"For the next hour he was in my house," she told "Good Morning America." "He, at one point, had me dragged through the house to find all my valuables."

But when the intruder, wearing a ski mask, hit her in the forehead with his handgun and used shoelaces to tie her hands to the corners of her bed, she found herself defenseless -- until she realized she might be able to reach her laptop.

The intruder took off with her cell phone, her iPod and her car but left her laptop behind. Still tied to the headboard, Windom managed to grab the laptop with her feet and, using a power cord between her toes, instant messaged her boyfriend for help.

"I pulled the comforter over and then dragged the laptop over with my feet," she said. "I was able to pry it open."

Hitting a snag when she needed to hit the Control, Alt and Delete buttons to get her computer started, Windom made a few missed attempts, before realizing that she could hit Control and Alt with her right toes and the power cord between her left toes to hit Delete.

She was able to instant message boyfriend John Hilton shortly after.

"CALL 911 POLICE," she wrote.

Hilton's response: "Crap."

"I'M HOME TIED TO BEED (sic) ROB," she wrote back.

"First thing I got was help in capital letters. Then, 'Call the police,'" Hilton said. "I was in shock. I couldn't believe it."

before and after bunions

This is a 52 year old male who was suffering from painful Bunions for many years. The post operative x-ray was taken two weeks after surgery and the patient was placed in a walking shoe that day!

high heels, yes again....

-- High heels may turn heads, but new research shows the long-term cost of wearing them is even steeper than the sky-high price tag of some coveted brands.
Along with aching feet and a variety of foot deformities, years of high-heel wearing can actually alter the anatomy of the calf muscles and tendons, according to a study by researchers in England, published online July 16 in the Journal of Experimental Biology.
The incline of high heels causes the calf muscles to contract. Over time, this causes the muscle fibers to shorten and the Achilles tendon to thicken, so much so that some women feel pain when they try to walk in flats or sneakers.
"You put on heels, you are going to deform your body. End of story," "High heels look beautiful, but the body isn't meant to wear them. There is no way around it."
For the study, Marco Narici of Manchester Metropolitan University and colleagues recruited 80 women aged 20 to 50 who had been wearing heels of at least 2 inches almost daily for two years or more. Of those, 11 said they experienced discomfort when walking in flatter shoes.
When compared with women who did not wear heels, ultrasounds revealed the women who wore heels had calf muscle fibers that were 13% shorter, while MRIs showed the Achilles tendon, which attaches the heel bone to the calf muscle, was stiffer and thicker.
"This is a great study that looks at the mechanism of how high heels may cause grief and aggravation to the woman wearing them," somen can be slaves to fashion but not suffer so much physical discomfort."
It's not a big leap to know that shoes that hurt can't be good for you, For example:
High heels put stress on the back and knees. Squeezing into high heels with narrow toe boxes can cause a condition called Morton's neuroma, a painful thickening of tissue between the third and fourth toes.
Haglund's deformity, sometimes called the "pump bump," occurs when back straps of heels dig into the tissue around the Achilles tendon. Too-tight shoes can bring on bunions, an enlargement of bone or tissue at the base of the big toe that pushes the big toe toward the second toe.
Pointy shoes can worsen hammertoe by forcing the toes to bend at the middle joints, eventually causing them to stay bent and rigid even when barefoot.
And then there are those uneven-sidewalk wipeouts that lead to ankle sprains and breaks.
The fix for many of these conditions, podiatrists said, may come as bad news for those emulating "Sex and the City" fashionista Carrie Bradshaw: Box up your stilettos, take over-the-counter anti-inflammatories if necessary, and wear more sensible footwear.
"I tell a lot of women to put on sneakers and take Aleve," "A heel will make a woman's butt stick out and makes the body look taller, thinner. Society pushes us to look a certain way, and all women want to look attractive. In reality, it can be crippling, and it is literally changing the shape of the body."
And don't think those now ubiquitous flip-flops are your solution. Flip-flops offer no arch support or shock absorption, and the toes have to scrunch with every step to keep the foot from slipping, experts said.
"I have recently seen some lovely flip-flops injuries," "Flip flops are meant for the beach, not for walking on cement or on vacation or at an amusement park. If you wear them, you are treating your feet poorly and you will eventually pay for it."
If you must wear heels, minimize the time you spend on your feet, wear wider heels that distribute the weight better and shop for shoes at the end of the day when your foot is larger”..

filler -up!

Collagen Feet Fillers


Some women might turn to flats to avoid foot pain from wearing heels, but a fortitudinous—and vain—few are opting for collagen feet fillers instead. The solution is an injection of protein in the ball of the heel that provides a layer of extra padding. “I am guilty of over-wearing my favorite shoes…The foot filler treatment has made me a lot more comfortable,” one English client told the U.K.’s Daily Mail of the treatment. The treatment costs about $225.

Why do our feet smell?

E­verybody is familiar with this phenomenon. Most of us have a friend or relative who can clear out a room when they kick off their shoes. And even the sweetest smelling person can do a decent job stinking up a pair of shoes by running a few miles in them. So what's going on here? Why do your feet have a stronger odor than the rest of you does? The main thing that feeds foot smell is sweat. With more than 250,000 sweat glands each, your feet are among the most perspiring parts of the body. In one day, each foot can produce more than a pint of sweat! Sweat is basically just salt and water, though, so it doesn't have a distinctive smell of its own. The smell is actually caused by bacteria on our skin that eats the sweat and excretes waste that has a strong odor. It's perfectly normal to have bacteria on your skin, and it doesn't ordinarily produce a noticeable smell, but sweat attracts bacteria and gives them a whole lot to feed on. Of course we sweat all over -- our hands have a comparable number of sweat glands, for example -- and most of the rest of our body doesn't particularly stink (the armpits being a notable exception. See How Sweat W­orks for details.) So what's different about our feet? The answer is our socks and shoes. The sweat our feet excrete can't easily escape into the air like the sweat our hands excretes -- it all collects on our skin and in our socks. The bacteria love this dark, damp feast and have a sort of feeding frenzy. When you take off your shoes, the smell that hits you is all the bacteria excretion that's collected on your feet and in your socks and shoes. The main reason some people's feet (or more precisely, some people's socks and shoes) smell worse than other people's is that some people sweat more than other people. This is just one of the many variable physiological qualities of human beings. This is also why sometimes your feet smell much worse than at other times -- it all has to do with how much you sweat. Tips to Reduce Foot Odor
So, since foot odor is caused by bacteria digesting sweat, there are two main ways to reduce the stink. You can:
decrease the amount of bacteria on your feet
decrease the amount of sweat that collects on your feet and in your shoes
Reducing the level of bacteria is really a matter of cleanliness. To control the bacteria population on you feet, you should:
wash your feet with strong anti-bacterial soap
wear clean socks
don't wear the same shoes everyday - give a pair of shoes 24 hours or more to air out before wearing them again
To reduce the amount of sweat that collects in your shoes, you should:
wear well-ventilated shoes instead of very constrictive shoes, such as boots
always wear socks, preferably made of cotton or other absorbent materials that absorb a lot of the sweat so the bacteria can't feed on it
change your socks a few times a day
buy some absorbent Odor-Eater type shoe inserts
apply an antiperspirant to your feet
­If your foot odor is really bad and these solutions don't help much, then you should see a doctor. There are a number of prescription drugs that can treat serious foot odor, some by killing bacteria and some by reducing foot sweat.

new soles to the soul!

Linda Dahlstrom writes: Have a bunion? Well, that says a lot about you. At least, if you believe foot readers, who say that not only are toes the new windows to the soul but they can also reveal everything from whether someone is honest to their financial state. (A good clue is if they’re clad in Christian Louboutins.)

Have a hammer toe? That indicates some kind of struggle, toe readers say. Also, rigid toes mean rigid people.

But don’t you think it’s as easy as just looking at the foot – there’s far more to it. “I usually just ask their name and if they’re right or left handed. That tells me a lot,” toe reader Jan Daniel told NBC affiliate KXAS. Of course it does.

More people may be toe readers than you know, so if you want to keep an aura of mystery, you’d best slap on some socks. The movement is making a march across America with a Facebook group for toe readers, a website called “Celebrity Toe Watch” devoted to reading the doggies of the rich and famous and, there’s even a toe reading cable TV show in Boise, Idaho.

Definition

Heel fissures, also known as cracked heels can be a simple cosmetic problem and a nuisance, but can also lead to serious medical problems. Heel fissures occur when the skin on the bottom, outer edge of the heel becomes hard, dry and flaky, sometimes causing deep fissures that can be painful or bleed.
Cause

Heel fissures can affect anyone, but risk factors include:

* Living in a dry climate
* Obesity
* Consistently walking barefoot or wearing sandals or open-backed shoes
* Inactive sweat glands

Like many foot conditions, heel fissures can become more dangerous if they go untreated and become deep or infected. This is especially dangerous for people with diabetes or compromised immune systems.
Treatment and Prevention

Moisturizing the feet regularly can prevent heel fissures. Once they occur, you can use a pumice stone daily to gently decrease the thick and flaky layer of skin. Avoid going barefoot or wearing open-backed shoes, sandals or shoes with thin soles. Shoes with strong shock absorption can help to improve the condition.

Moisturizing the feet at least twice a day and wearing socks over moisturizer while sleeping can also help.

If the problem persists, see your foot doctor.