Healing the Body from the Foot Up
Dramatic Changes in Health When the Joints in the Feet are Realigned
Nov 6, 2007
Do you need renewed energy, or help with one of many problems that originate from the foot? If so, Foot Joint Mobilisation may be your answer. Foot joint mobilisation is a fairly recently developed procedure that aims to enhance overall good health and improve mobility and performance. It’s for anyone, including sports people.
In New Zealand’s Lower Hutt, Kim Turton practises Foot Joint Mobilisation. Kim came across it while searching for alternative answers to her own health difficulties. She was frustrated with her health and was experiencing low energy. “I asked God to show me the next step to make me better. You see your peers achieving goals and you get up in the morning and endure until you go to bed at night.”
A lymphatic drainage therapist advised Foot Joint Mobilisation. It was after this that Kim saw courses available for people wanting to learn the procedures. She attended primarily to find the answers needed for her own health, but as she began building up her strength she realised this was something she wanted to pass on to others.
Now she practises privately. Kim says Foot Joint Mobilisation is wonderfully relaxing and it can realign the body from the feet up.
History of Foot Joint Mobilisation
Dr Harvey Lampell, a podiatrist in America who founded Foot Joint Mobilisation, discovered that more than 80% of his clients were able to reduce the need for surgery. Dr Lampell had a successful podiatry clinic in California until life handed him a challenge from a parachuting accident. He was left with severe back pain. Finding that reflexology (the application of specific pressures to reflex points in the hands and feet) gave him the most relief, he learnt to use this in his clinic. But he became dissatisfied with the misshapen feet of his clients and developed the technique of Foot Joint mobilisation.
Foot Joint Mobilisation Helps a Variety of Problems
As Dr Lampell progressed with his new technique he found he was relieving many structural disabilities which were previously untreatable without surgery or drugs and that resulted when any of the 28 bones in the feet were incorrectly aligned. These included:-
- neck pain
- sciatica
- shoulder pain
- swollen ankles
- back pain
- bunions
- knee pain
- flat feet
- hip pain
- shin splints
- arthritis
- claw toes
How Foot Joint Mobilisation Works
The bony architecture of our feet includes a number of arches that are reinforced and maintained by ligaments and influenced by muscles. The long arch on the inside of the foot transmits the force of the body weight to the ground when standing, and to the large toe when moving, creating a giant lever that gives us the spring in our step. The foot arches and heel absorb shock and balance the body. When these are misaligned it has a chain effect, displacing the posture of the entire body.
Kim learnt the technique from Maree Gifkins, a practitioner and tutor in Hastings, who was trained by Dr Lampell when he was in New Zealand in 1994. Maree has a case study of a client who had bunion in her right foot, arthritis in her right knee and experienced back pain. She was taking painkillers and anti-inflammatory tablets. The patient had treatment twice a week for eight weeks. After three weeks the bunion was no longer painful and the pain medication was reduced. By the end of the treatment she experienced no pain in either foot. The arthritic pain had disappeared, and so had the lower back pain and her bunion had reduced by two-thirds of its original size.
Kim Turton is excited that Foot Joint Mobilisation helps people to help themselves.
