Hasta La Gadget!

As bunion surgeon in Manhattan, there are common questions that routinely come up during a bunion surgery consultation. If you are thinking about having bunion surgery, then this blog will give you my best answers to the most commonly asked bunion surgery questions.

1. What Exactly Is A Bunion?
A bunion is not a growth of bone (like most people incorrectly think). Rather, a bunion is misalignment causing the big toe joint to protrude out from underneath the skin.

2. Will A Bunion Get Worse If You Postpone Surgery?
Bunions come in different sizes and the generally get larger with time. Some bunions progress quickly whereas other enlarge slowly over many many years. Smaller bunions generally involve a less involved surgery whereas larger bunions involve more surgical work.

3. What are the Best Products to Avoid Surgery?
Products to treat bunions are generally aimed at alleviating symptoms rather than reverse the bunion. Bunion pads are great at alleviating the pressure on from the shoe. Toe spacers help align the big toe as well as lessen pain. Toe splints worn at night may limit progression of the bunion.

Read Dr. Blitz’ Huff Po Blog: Best Products To Avoid Bunion Surgery

4. Is Bunion Surgery Covered by Insurance?
Bunions are a medical condition and therefore surgery is generally covered by most health insurance plans so long as its associated with pain and functional limitations. Bunion surgery for the sole purpose of making the foot look better is considered cosmetic and generally excluded. Some insurance plans have specific exclusions on foot surgery altogether.

5. How Are Bunions Fixed With Bunion Surgery?
Because bunions are a boney problem, they generally require bone repositioning surgery. There are a handful of bunion surgery techniques that are used today, and are broken down as follows:

• Bunion Shaving: Generally for very small bunions, some excess bone is removed from the inside of the bone. Often ligament repair is also performed to realign the big toe. This type of surgery is rarely used in isolation today, and often combined with other types of boney procedures.
• Bone Cutting: With this type of surgery, the malpositioned bone is repaired by cutting the deviated bones and structurally changing the shape of the bone to achieve better alignment.
• Bone Fusion: This method realigns the entire bone through the arch by fusing a non-essential joint in the foot. The deviated bone is realigned at the location where the bone deviates. This is called the Lapidus Bunionectomy.

6. When Can You Walk After Bunion Surgery?
Immediate walking in a small surgical shoe is indeed possible in todays modern age after bunion surgery — though not all surgeons do such for large bunions. It used to be that casts and crutches required almost two months of casts and crutches. As a pioneer in walking after bunion surgery who developed a specialized patented implant, I have been able to walk patients immediately after surgery without casts and crutches — no matter the size of the bunion. Smaller bunion generally allow for walking in a small surgical shoe.

Read Dr. Blitz’ Huff Po Blog: Walking After Bunion Surgery

7. How Long Is Recovery?
It takes about six weeks for bones to mend after bunion surgery. Some people are able to transition into sneakers at that point whereas others may take a few weeks more. Most people have returned to full activity by three months after surgery.

8. Do Bunions Return After Surgery?
Bunion surgery is generally curative for bunions. Some people with ligamentous laxity may have a higher chance of recurrence. Some techniques have less chance of recurrence. Recurrence is generally considered low risk after bunion surgery.

9. When Can You Drive After Bunion Surgery?
The ability to drive after foot surgery depends on how disabled and limited you are with your foot. Any restrictive device (cast, boots) that impairs your ability to drive may create an unsafe situation. Also consider that it is unlawful to drive impaired if you are still on narcotics following your foot surgery.

10. Will Your Foot Set Off Metal Detector Alarms At The Airport?
Bunion surgery generally involves the placement of metal fixation (screws, plates, wires and/or staples) into the foot to hold the bones steady during healing, which may set off a metal detector. Some metal detectors are more sensitive than others and depending on the composition any metal in the foot may be identified with a metal detector. Some surgeons may present you with a letter indicating that you have metal in the foot should you be concerned this will be an issue at the airport.

Bonus Question: Can Bunion Surgery Be Performed With Laser Surgery?
Most people searching for laser bunion surgery, usually are looking for better cosmetic result than traditional bunion surgery that places the incision on the top of the foot. Laser bunion surgery is not a viable option today as the laser burns the tissue and bone. However, incisions can be hidden on the side of the foot. Plastic surgery techniques and Bunionplasty(R) can be used to minimize scarring.

Dr. Neal Blitz
Reconstructive Foot & Ankle Surgery
New York City

Other Huff Post Reading: 6 Myths About Bunion Surgery

To Learn More About Bunion Surgery New York please visit
www.Bunionplasty.com

By Yoga Journal

Use this practice to open and build awareness in your ajna chakra to begin to see everything in your life more clearly.

Let’s start by doing an awakening exercise for the ajna chakra. Take a comfortable seat. Softly close your eyes. Turn your gaze gently to your third eye, or the space between your eyebrows. Bring your hands to a prayer position and begin rubbing them together vigorously.

Once you have created a good amount of heat between your palms, cup them over your eyes. Let the eyes absorb the heat. Feel the heat soften any tension in or around the eyes. Repeat this process three times pausing to feel between each round.

Set Your Ajna Intention

Now set your intention for this practice. To grease the wheels, here are some themes that relate to the sixth chakra: unlocking intuition; improving correct perception; seeing that you are connected to everyone and everything; inviting third eye wisdom to light your way. Feel free to use any of these or choose your own. As long as your intention feels true for you it has value.

Dolphin Plank

Come onto your hands and knees. Bring your elbows to the floor directly under your shoulders and bring your hands to Prayer (Anjali Mudra). Step the feet back as you straighten your legs behind you. The only points of contact with the floor are the balls of the feet and the forearms. Make your legs super strong, engage your belly and pull your front ribs in and up to widen the low back. This is a challenging pose, stick with it! Imagine the prayer hands and the third eye are connected by an invisible stream. That stream is your intention. Stay laser-focused on it for 5-10 breaths. Let your resolve to attach to something worthy of your attention make you strong. When you release the pose, rest on your belly.

Eagle Pose

Garudasana

From standing bend your knees. Lift your right knee and stack it on top of your left. Then wrap your right foot behind your left shin if possible. Bring your arms to shoulder height and stack your left elbow on top of your right, wrapping the right hand into the left. Keep elbows bent at 90 degrees. Balance here bringing your hips down low. Encourage your knees to move toward the midline instead of skewing to one side. The word “garuda” means to devour. Let this pose devour ego, doubt, and fear, clearing the way for loving intention. Spend five breaths on this side and then switch.

Warrior III Pose

Virabhadrasana III

From standing with arms by your side, engage your legs and begin to tip the pelvis forward. Send your left leg straight back and up until it is parallel to the floor. Extend the spine and head forward also keeping the upper body parallel to the floor. There should be plum line from the head to the left toes. Reach your arms straight back and firm the triceps. Lift your low belly to widen the low back and stand here strong and balanced. Connect with the third eye center and realize that the more we connect to everyone and everything, the easier it is for us to remain balanced even in the least stable conditions. Stay here for five breaths, soft but strong.

Continue the Third Eye Chakra Tune Up by practicing the full sequence.

About Stephanie Snyder

Stephanie Snyder is a San Francisco-based vinyasa yoga teacher. She’s written, modeled, and created DVDs for Yoga Journal in addition to presenting at Yoga Journal LIVE!

Join YogaJournal.com’s #ChakraTuneUp2015 to tune in to and tune up your energy centers for a mind-body-soul health overhaul this year.

The indie music world was shocked when Sonic Youth’s co-founders Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore announced they were separating in 2011 after 27 years of marriage. Gordon, 61, has just published a memoir, Girl in a Band, that tells that story, among others, but she spoke honestly about the reasons her marriage fell apart two years ago, calling it the “most conventional story ever.”

Moore had an affair, which she discovered after seeing a text message. Counseling didn’t help, in part because he continued to see his affair partner.

While both Gordon and Moore have their stories to tell about their marriage and infidelity, there is one voice that remains silent — their daughter Coco’s. She was 17 when they split, still a minor but old enough to be way past the age of idolizing her parents and in the throes of her own sexual awakenings.

And that’s fairly typical. Who asks kids what they think about their parent’s infidelity? Regardless, they clearly are impacted, evidenced by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver’s son, Patrick, changing his surname to Shriver on Twitter shortly after Schwarzenegger’s affair went public; he was 17 at the time, the same age Coco was.

It isn’t always horrible. Eve Pell, who chronicles late-in-life marriages, including her own, in Love, Again: The Wisdom of Unexpected Romance, ended up living with the man who effectively destroyed her known family life when her socialite mother cheated on her father, ran off with a lover, married him and had a custody battle that was sordidly played out in New York newspapers — a situation that could be one of the worst-case scenarios. Except, it wasn’t; Eve says she loved her stepfather much more than her dad.

But that often isn’t the case. A middle-aged friend never quite forgave her mother for having an affair and then forcing her to live as a family with her mom’s lover. And she believes it screwed her up for a long time when it came to her own romantic relationships.

Her story’s more typical.

It’s hard to know just how many kids have been in the middle of a parent’s infidelity because we don’t know how many people are cheating; estimates are from around 25 percent to as high as 70 percent. And, it’s hard to know how many cheating spouses move their kids into new digs with their lover, whether they marry him or her or not. Given who tends to get physical custody, that would most likely be the moms; women seek divorce much more than men do, and fewer women don’t have custody (2.4 million out of 8.6 million single moms, but that’s approaching the number of single dads, 2.6 million). Still, there are about one million kids who experience parental divorce each year, and infidelity likely played a part in many of those splits; it’s among the top factors for divorce.

So it’s no surprise that after the initial shock, anger, anxiety and shame, many kids, like my friend, might have problems with trust and honesty.

“I’m not saying that everyone does it, but 55 percent of adult children that came from families where one parent was unfaithful ended up being cheaters themselves,” says clinical psychologist Ana Nogales, author of Parents Who Cheat: How Children and Adults are Affected When Their Parents Are Unfaithful.

Her research indicates 75 percent felt betrayed by their cheating parent, 80 percent said it affected their attitude toward love and relationships, and 70 percent said they believe it impacted their ability to trust others.

But there are a number of factors to consider — when the kids find out, how old the kids are, whether it’s one isolated incident or a history of sexual shenanigans, whether it leads to divorce, whether the cheating parent moves in with the lover, whether the child becomes a confidant, how their parents handle themselves after, whether the child discovers the infidelity accidentally (like after DNA testing that indicate the man they believe is their father isn’t, which occurs a small percentage of the time but enough to make you think, hmm). The list goes on and on.

There just isn’t enough long-term data to make generalizations on how a parent’s transgressions impact a child as he or she enters adulthood. But, there are patterns, just as we see in children whose parents are addicts or abusive. “It’s not just a behavior, it’s a whole dynamic of relationships,” says Azmaira Maker, a family therapy psychologist.

And it begins to impact them before the actual infidelity is exposed, says psychiatrist and author Scott Haltzman:

The unfaithful spouse is mistaken to believe the pain inflicted by the affair happens at the moment the child is told. No, the harm done to the child occurs at the moment that that partner elected to go outside the marriage for an emotional or physical relationship. When an affair happens, it cheats the spouse and the family of the love and commitment of a partner and parent. Telling the child may put an ugly name on why a parent has pulled away from the family, but it is, ultimately, naming a truth. And if there is one thing that affairs teach us, it is how devastating lies can be.

With that in mind, Haltzman doesn’t agree that children should always be told about a parent’s infidelity (which makes the argument that all infidelity is abuse hard to justify; most of us would agree that children should immediately be removed from an abusive home).

Few of us have had a perfect, idyllic childhood; most are on a spectrum from pretty great to pretty horrible. A parent’s infidelity is just one of the many things life can toss at us. What’s your infidelity story?

Vicki Larson is the co-author of The New I Do: Reshaping Marriage for Skeptics, Realists and Rebels (Seal Press). Order the book on Amazon, follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook. Download an eBook for $1.99 through March 15, 2015. Details here. A version of this article appeared on Vicki Larson’s blog, OMG Chronicles.

Walking is on everyone’s radar these days, and for good reason. This year’s blockbuster movie, Wild, based on Cheryl Strayed’s book of her arduous personal journey on foot, won actress Reese Witherspoon an Oscar nomination. While you don’t need to take an 1,100-mile hike, walking is universally understood as a way to help heal grief, depression, and anxiety. It’s also a versatile and accessible form of exercise with profound health benefits.

Good for Spirit and Body
For the Huichol, walking is a physical and spiritual act, essential to the health of the soul as well as the body. Their days routinely include long walks over mountains and varying terrain — to their cornfields, to gather food and water. During these walks they are not only getting physical exercise out in the natural elements, they are also deepening their spiritual connection to the earth. When I brought Don José to America, he noticed no one was outside. “Don’t they walk to get from one place to another?” he wondered. He was dismayed to find out that everyone took their cars instead.

A Powerful Tool
You’ve probably already experienced the benefits of a good stroll outside after being cooped up indoors. Here are four tips to maximize the benefits of walking and truly improve your body, mind and soul.

1. Walk for Exercise. The physical benefits of walking include improving oxygen and blood flow, burning fat, and activating fine motor-control muscles that do not get used during jogs or runs. Start a program of walking as daily exercise, using your own fitness level as your guide. Aim for being able to walk about three miles a day. Start on level ground, and then add inclines and declines. Try increasing your speed. If you prefer, add hand held weights for your upper body.

2. Walk Frequently. You don’t have to walk for hours to feel the benefits. A short walk will recharge your brain as well as get your body moving. Throughout the day, take five-minute walks outside. Keep a moderate pace and make sure you are taking in impressions of the world around you. This helps remove that unhealthy boundary that an indoor lifestyle puts between the environment and you.

3. Walk for Recovery. Even the fittest athletes can use walking for recovery. Walking improves the ability of muscles to flush out the byproducts of exercise faster, which speeds recovery time. After an intense workout, go for a walk at a moderate speed. It doesn’t have to be for long: even a walk as short as five minutes a day can help speed up the regeneration process.

4. Vary Your Walks. Changing your walking routine will optimize its ability to refresh your state of mind and inspire your soul. If you usually walk alone, bring a friend or family member. If you find you’re not taking in your surroundings, find a new road or trail. If the setting isn’t keeping your attention, find a more scenic route with more to notice. Such changes are signals to your soul that it, too, can be changed for the better.

Are you ready to get those nostalgic Final Fantasy memories rattled back to life? Well, grab your rose-tinted glasses, because Final Fantasy: Record Keeper, coming to the US on iOS and Android in the next few weeks, pulls together all the FF heroes (…