Most foot and ankle advice online comes from someone selling something. A shoe. A supplement. A procedure. This page explains how the articles on this site get made, who writes them, and what money sits behind them, which on this site is very little. If you ever want to check my work, this is the page that tells you how.
How every post is made
Peer reviewed research is the staple here. Every guide starts in the medical literature, in journals like The Journal of Foot and Ankle Surgery, Foot & Ankle International, and the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Consensus statements from professional societies count too, because a specialty's collected judgment, published and signed, carries real weight.
The numbers get translated, not dumped on you. Patient prose on this site leaves out the confidence intervals and p values and keeps the part that matters at the kitchen table: how many people improved, how long it took, and what the catch was. Behind every one of those plain numbers sits a full citation. Each claim in a post traces to a numbered reference at the bottom of the page, with the journal name, year, volume, and page numbers, so a reader with library access can pull the same paper I read.
My own experience shows up too, and it wears a label. When a paragraph says "in my clinic" or "the way I do it," that is one surgeon's practice talking, and it sits beside the evidence instead of blending into it. Where my habit and the literature disagree, the post follows the literature and says so. Experience fills the gaps research has not answered yet. It does not outrank a trial.
Who writes and reviews this site
I write every post. I am Dennis Zack Dawson, DPM, FACFAS, DABFAS, DABPM, a double board-certified foot and ankle surgeon practicing in Charlotte, NC. My week is split between clinic and the operating room, and the cases from that week are usually what send me back to the literature.
Each post carries the month and year it was written or last updated, right under my name at the top. Posts get reviewed on a standing cycle and revised when the evidence moves, a guideline changes, a product gets recalled, or a reader catches something that needs a second look. An updated date on a post means the content was re-read against the current literature, not just the stamp changed.
Corrections
When I get something wrong, the fix happens in the post itself, where the error lived. Quiet edits for typos and formatting happen without ceremony. A correction that changes a fact, a number, or a recommendation gets logged in the table below with the date and what changed, so the record of the mistake stays public even after the mistake is gone.
Spot an error? Use the contact page and tell me. Corrections from readers get the same treatment as corrections I catch myself.
| Date | Post | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| November 2026 | Sitewide product recommendations | Product links across the blog and the Recommended Products page were aligned to a single canonical list, so a product named in a post is the product the link actually reaches. |
| November 2026 | Hallux Rigidus (big toe arthritis) | Full refresh. Removed all content about the Cartiva synthetic cartilage implant, a recalled device that is no longer an option, named the decompression and Youngswick osteotomies, and corrected the joint shape figures to the source study (93 of 127 feet, 73%). |
| November 2026 | Ankle Arthritis | Full refresh. Corrected the total ankle replacement survivorship figures (92.1% at a minimum of 5 years), added a replacement versus fusion comparison, and rebuilt the reference list to 17 verified citations. |
| November 2026 | Ankle Sprains | Full refresh. Added a high ankle sprain section, rebuilt the children's section on MRI evidence (most suspected growth plate fractures in children are ligament injuries), and corrected three citations. |
| November 2026 | Sesamoiditis | Full refresh. Rebuilt the reference list (11 verified citations), corrected the scope of the surgical return to sport figures, and corrected what the injection evidence actually says. |
| November 2026 | Flat Feet in Children | Full refresh. Replaced two references that did not exist, corrected the overtreatment numbers, and updated the orthotics evidence to the current Cochrane review. |
| November 2026 | Intoeing in Children | Full refresh. Removed duplicate and non-article references, corrected the description of the Staheli study (1,000 normal lower extremities), and added a source for the femoral anteversion figures. |
Conflicts of interest
I am not a consultant for any orthopedic device company, and no device company pays me. Nothing on this site is sponsored content, and no company pays for placement, coverage, or a kind word.
I use implants, instruments, and biologics in the operating room, the same as any foot and ankle surgeon. When a post discusses a technique or a class of device I use in my own practice, the post says so in plain language, and the discussion runs on the published evidence for that technique, the good results and the bad ones. My paycheck comes from taking care of patients. It does not come from the hardware.
My views are my own
The opinions on this site are mine. They do not speak for my employer, who does not review or approve what gets published here. They also do not speak for my dogs, Charlotte and Bruce, whose medical opinions begin and end with longer walks and earlier dinners. When my view and the published evidence part ways, the post labels which is which, and the evidence gets the last word.
Product recommendations and affiliate links
Some links on this site are affiliate links. If you buy through one, the site earns a small commission at no cost to you. That commission is the only money the recommendations here generate, and the site itself carries no ads.
Products make the list because I use them or recommend them in clinic and they clear a simple bar: actually useful, not garbage. No company can pay to get a product onto the list, and a product that stops earning its spot comes off. The Recommended Products page is the master list, and the product sections inside individual posts pull from that same list, so what a post recommends and what the products page shows cannot drift apart.
Medical disclaimer
Everything on this site is education. It is not medical advice for your foot, and reading it does not make you my patient or create a doctor patient relationship. Feet that look alike on paper behave differently in person, and an exam changes recommendations in ways an article cannot.
Some problems should not wait for an article to work. Get care promptly, the same day, if you have a hot, red, swollen foot; an open wound and diabetes; or a foot or ankle injury you cannot bear weight on. Those three patterns cause permanent damage on a short clock, and no website reading substitutes for being seen.
Your privacy
This site runs on Squarespace, which collects the standard website analytics and anything you send through the contact form. That is the extent of it. The site has no patient portal and collects no medical information.
No patient information is ever published here. When a post uses a case X ray or clinical photo from my practice, the image is fully deidentified before it goes up: cropped to the anatomy, stripped of file data, with no name, date, or record number attached to it. The cases teach. The patients stay anonymous.