Chronic pain is a huge problem globally, in Australia alone, 3.2 million people suffer from chronic pain. But what is a holistic view of pain and is the pain in your shoulders connected to your feet? Podiatrist Mark Ninio joins me to discuss these connections and also define what is normal foot function.

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Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                    Hello and welcome to Unstress. I'm Dr. Ron Ehrlich. Now people don't give much thought to their feet, that's not entirely true. If something does go wrong say you stub your toe or you twist your ankle, you very quickly become aware of how important being mobile without having to think too much about every step is. There's a lot more to your feet than you may have thought about. My guest today is one of Australia's leading podiatrists Mark Ninio. As you'll hear, there are some surprising connections between podiatry, how your feet hit the ground and so much more. Mark and I have known each other for many years. We worked very closely with a rather enlightened chiropractor in Sydney almost 30 years ago. The chiropractor realized that in order to get stability in his patients that meant he didn't really want to have them coming back every month or two or three for an adjustment as they went out of balance whether that was for chronic upper body problems such as tension headaches, neck aches or shoulder pain or whether it was lower back pain or hip or knee problems, recurring problems, he needed to work with a dentist to stabilize the jaw joints and he needed to work with a podiatrist to look at foot function.

Now for many years Mark and I saw the same patients. We noticed that we were affecting each others' work. We ended up, because of this interest, doing five years of research together. It was one day a week but it went on for five years and it was at the University of New South Wales in the Physiology department. We ended up publishing papers along the way. We learned a lot about each others' work. I realized there were many similarities between the two professions, dentistry and podiatry, yeah, talk about holistic. It's also worth mentioning that chronic pain is a huge problem globally. I mean in Australia alone, 3.2 million people suffer from chronic pain and it's a subject that I'm going to be exploring a lot more in this podcast series. Many of those patients have chronic musculoskeletal pain, headaches, neck aches, upper or lower back pain or a combination of the above. It's a very complex problem. I believe this is one part of the puzzle that we're going to be dealing with today but it's one that's often overlooked. Whether you're a pain sufferer or your foot structure affects you in some ways, whether you're a pain sufferer or not, whether you like it or not, your foot structure affects you in some ways. I think you're going to find this very interesting. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Mark Ninio. Welcome to the show Mark.

Mark Ninio:                            Thanks Ron.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich:                   Mark, now you and I have known each other for a very long time and we've worked together for a long time. One of the things we've reflected on is that there are surprising similarities between dentistry and podiatry mainly because dentistry is usually ... most people associate it with teeth and gums and podiatry with corns and bunions but there's a whole lot more to that, podiatry and there is. Tell us a little bit about the other aspect of podiatry that people may not be aware of.

Mark Ninio:                            I think one of the most exciting aspects of podiatry is when we look at posture. When we talk about upper body posture we've got to consider the feet and the legs. The feet are your foundations and if your foundations are uneven or imbalanced, then further up the chain you've got to compensate. It's these compensations combined with many other inputs that eventually lead to poor function and pain.