On Monday March 8th, Dr. Levine was a featured guest speaker at New York Methodist Hospital in Brooklyn. In her lecture on cosmetic foot surgery, Dr. Levine covered the topics of injectable implants, laser therapy, treatments for hypotrophic scars, toe lengthening, as well as her own innovative procedure, Stiletto RX: Pillows for Your Feet. The lecture was very well-attended and received, and Dr. Levine was proud to contribute to the educational development of New York Methodist’s residents.

Dr. Levine is featured in the new book How to Never Look Fat Again by New York Times bestselling author Charla Krupp. In the chapter on Wide Feet & Ankles, Dr. Levine gives tips on how to make your feet look thinner by wearing the correct types of shoes.

Check out some scans below, and be sure pick up a copy of this fantastic book!

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Dr. Levine was featured in the January issue of Podiatry Management Magazine in an article titled “Podiatrists with Other Specialties.” In the latest issue of Departures, Dr. Levine was again featured in an article titled “Can These Soles Be Saved?”

Check out both articles below:

The walker’s slump.

You used to feel proud of yourself for just getting out of the house. You smiled and nodded at the other walkers, pleased with yourself to be in such energetic company. You felt proud when you passed a slowpoke and competitive when you saw someone faster. You set goals for yourself. By the next month, you were walking a mile in fifteen minutes instead of twenty minutes.

Now you’re walking as fast as you can, and you can’t think of any new goals to set. Your daily exercise has become just another chore.

The first thing you need to do is remind yourself why you started walking in the first place. Chances are that you were overweight, out of breath, or suffering from a multitude of middle-aged health problems (from high blood pressure to constipation) that your doctor told you could be helped by exercise. You’ve probably started to take the health benefits of walking for granted, which increases the temptation to stop.

You need to play some psychological games with yourself to retrieve your motivation.

One way to renew your interest is to change the geography of your walks. I know this isn’t always easy, especially if you live in a cold climate and must walk indoors (usually in a gym or shopping mall) in winter. In temperate months, though, look for pleasant open spaces–some of them may only be a short drive from your home–that you haven’t tried before.

If you’re worried about safety, call a local walkers’ or runners’ organization and find out where and when the real fitness fanatics train. You may find that dozen of exercisers gather every morning in a secluded local park, and you can tag along for the scenery.

One man I know discovered that his local high school track team trained every spring morning along a river walk that he’d considered too isolated for safety. The students enjoyed his company (though they couldn’t believe it when he turned down their proffered doughnuts at the end of his walk), and the gentle competition helped him step up his walking pace.

If you’re in good health, you may also want to plan more challenging walks in real countryside. Check with your doctor if you’re planning a walk that includes hills. Training for a walk in more rugged country can make your daily routine more challenging.

Another way to keep yourself on your feet is to promise yourself a small reward at the end of every week of walking. I call this the “bribe yourself” fitness plan. Buy yourself that new hardcover mystery novel instead of waiting patiently for it to come out in paperback. End your walk with a movie you’ve been dying to see. (This only works if you’re a late-afternoon walker.) Purchase and prepare the foods you most love for breakfast and set everything out so that it will be waiting for you when you get home from your early-morning walk.

Many people (I’m not one of them) also enjoy listening to music or podcasts when they walk. I try to empty my mind and just enjoy the scenery in Central Park, because sometimes my best ideas surface when I’m concentrating on nothing but putting one foot in front of the other.

A final note: There may be people in your life who are discouraging you from walking, or at least encouraging you to “skip it just this once.” This may be the time to seek reinforcement from like-minded exercisers who share your fitness goals. It’s just as hard to reestablish the habit of walking as it is to start walking in the first place. Maybe even harder, because a return to the sedentary lifestyle has something of the depressing psychological impact of a drug or alcohol relapse.

When was the last time someone told you she had “cold feet” about doing something– getting married, going skiing, having a baby? “Having cold feet” means having a case of nervous jitters. And nerves are one of the keys to the problem of icy cold feet.

Why are your feet always so cold?

Your feet get cold because your warm blood isn’t circulating properly through the veins and arteries into your legs and out to your toes. Normally, the skin temperature down there should range between 75 and 90 degrees F. If it drops below 65 degrees, you’ve got a problem with your vascular, or circulatory, system. Your arteries, the smaller-sized blood vessels called arterioles, and your veins aren’t letting enough blood through.

Your nervous system plays a significant part in determining how much blood gets through. If you are disturbed about something or under a great deal of stress, nerves can constrict the little arterioles in your feet and lessen their ability to carry blood, giving you cold feet. At the other emotional extreme is the person (“hot under the collar”) whose nervous system sends excess blood through when the pressure is on. This is called vasodilation of the blood vessels, and it can make you hot all over.

How can cigarettes make your feet cold?

Believe it or not, smoking tobacco is a major cause of cold feet. You probably already know that you put your heart and your lungs at risk when you smoke, but you may never have blamed cigarettes for your cold feet. The nicotine makes your blood vessels tighten up, or constrict, and since it works on your entire nervous system, it affects these arterioles in your feet as well as in other areas. When they handed the cigarette and cup of hot coffee to recovering victims in those old movies, they weren’t doing them any favors. Amphetamines, diet pills Dexatrim, and some other medications work the same way. Take a look at what you are taking in on a regular basis if you want to get clues to your coldness.

How bad can the blood flow really be?

After inhaling one cigarette, the blood flow to your feet may be reduced by as much as 50 percent! When does it pick up again? Sometimes not for an hour after that single cigarette. So you can imagine what happens if you’re smoking two or three packs a day. The more you smoke, the colder you get. What’s diabolical about this is that you probably pick up another cigarette to try to warm yourself up.

What are some of the circulatory disorders keeping your feet cold?

Raynaud’s Disease: This is a relatively common disorder I see in women between ages twenty and forty whose hands and feet get very cold and even numb on occasion. Toes and fingertips suffer the most. If you have this problem,  you already know that the attacks come and go without warning, and winter is the worst time of year. Rest assured. Raynaud’s Disease is not a serious circulatory disease. It’s simply an uncomfortable condition that seems to be triggered by cold weather and a bad habit like smoking. Go to a doctor’s office for a professional opinion because your symptoms can mirror those of something more serious with the same first name. Raynaud’s Syndrome is another matter and something to worry about.

Raynaud’s Syndrome: This is a disorder which arises from the inability of your arteries to dilate and send blood where it is supposed to go. The attacks are episodic and seem to be brought on by cold temperatures, much like that of Raynaud’s Disease. It is linked to various underlying systemic diseases, such as collagen diseases, lead or nicotine toxicity, or neurovascular trauma.
The key to treatment for Raynaud’s Syndrome is to avoid the cold. In severe cases, in which the numbing gets out of hand, a physician may suggest a sympathecomy, a surgical procedure in which some sympathetic nerves to the foot or hand are cut.

Buerger’s Disease: Also known as thromboangiitis obliterans, this syndrome shows up in adult men who haven’t passed their fortieth birthday. What happens is that small arteries and arterioles in the legs and feet constriict and refuse to let the proper amount of blood pass through. The difference with Buerger’s disease is that actual tissue will be destroyed in the long run, turning ulcerous and eventually becoming gangrenous.

The fundamental treatment for Buerger’s disease is to stay away from cigarette smoke. Don’t smoke yourself, and don’t inhale smoke from others. Sometimes medication to make your blood vessels open up or dilate is prescribed, but this isn’t always very successful.

Will exercise help your cold toes?

Yes. Exercise can definitely improve your circulation and warm your feet up. Get out there and start walking.

Is there any other basic advice for avoiding cold feet?

Never wear constricting undergarments like stockings that are too tight or underpants which cut painfully into the top of your legs. Girdles don’t help your problem at all. Try not to cross your legs when you are sitting down.

For more information on cold feet and other foot ailments, check out Dr. Levine’s book Your Feet Don’t Have to Hurt, available for purchase from Amazon and bookstores everywhere.