Welcome to the Website of

Dr. Michael Zapf, DPM, MPH, FACFAS

 Thank you for visiting my website. I have been placing information and articles on this site for many years and have received millions of  hits during that time (and not that many of them were mine). I have designed it for people who like to read about their foot and ankle problems. Since I started the web site, I have added two associates to my practice, Dr. Darren Payne and Dr. Stephen Benson.  Since my site is filled with just my thoughts and opinions they are not, necessarily, shared by my colleagues. To see our less controversial (and less windy) practice web site, I offer you: www.ConejoFeet.com, the practice site for The Agoura Los Robles Podiatry Centers (ALRPC). The ALRPC practice site has a lot of material about our office, many of our policies and the registration forms to be filled out before your visit. I suggest all prospective patients visit www.ConejoFeet.com.

 I made the web site to give my patients the extra depth information that I don’t always have time to cover in the office visit. Visitors who are not my patients are welcome to browse the information found here. My younger colleagues are both under 50 and they, like many their age, do not favor in depth reading. They prefer their information presented to them in a few short, crisp bullet points. I, being of the, ahem, older generation, like to read about my ailments in greater depth. Here, I present the greater depth. If you ask a question about heel pain or bunions that I have not answered in my two monographs, I will quickly add it so that it is as complete as I can make it. If you agree with this philosophy, welcome to my page. If you correspond with me please let me know if you like the in depth reporting.

 Remember, this site is in no way intended to tell you how your own ailment or problem should be treated, only the approach I use when confronted with certain situations. Your problem may well be different from what you think it is and should always be evaluated by the appropriate professional, whether podiatrist, orthopedist or other authority. Please understand that I, nor anyone else, can offer you a proper diagnosis or treatment plan without seeing and feeling the problem at hand (foot?).  Happy reading.

 Sincerely, Michael Zapf, DPM, MPH, FACFAS, FACFAOM

 P.S. All the information in this web site is © by me and it is mine alone. No picture or any of the articles cannot be used by anyone without permission from me, personally.

 


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ACORN October 1997

A College Legacy - Ingrown Nails

By: Michael Zapf, DPM, MPH, FACFAS, FACFAOM

One of the happy coincidences of joining the Westlake Village Sunrise Rotary club was getting reacquainted with Eric. I remembered meeting him several years before as a patient in my office. When I met him as a patient he was an insurance neophyte and a recent graduate from California Lutheran University. He had what we in the podiatry business refer to technically as some really ugly ingrown nails. He had them for a long time, he said, and wanted to get rid of them permanently. In the office, on his first visit, we did just that. Under local anesthesia thin edges of the nail plate were removed and that portion of the nail root behind the nail edge was killed with a chemical. It is something podiatrists do regularly and Eric was thrilled to find the whole process so easy and painless. Only recently has he come to realize how much this little procedure changed his life.

Eric recently had a reunion of sorts with a couple of his college roommates. They all shared their memories of living together. The strongest memory of Eric, in the minds of all three of his roommates, was his monthly bathroom surgery session. Eric, they remembered, would take his little bag of surgical tools into the bathroom, lock the door and spend an hour moaning and groaning working on his ingrown nails. He would eventually emerge, pedally bandaged, with a satisfied look of victory in his eyes. The victory was short lived, however, for a month later they would find him locked away, again. While Eric thought nothing of these sessions, he was giving his friends memories for life.

This is the kind of courage men find commendable and his roommates tolerated (and maybe even admired) Eric’s endurance. This particular behavior, however, is not something that endears one to a spouse. Soon after graduation Eric secured a real job and a real girlfriend. He knew his bathroom surgery days were numbered and thus found himself in my office.

Eric recently told me this story and gave me permission (actually he begged me) to write about it. Again, he told me how happy he is not to need these monthly sessions. But I bet it is nothing compared to how happy his wife feels. I may have saved a marriage with this little office procedure.

(Rotary, by the way, is an international service organization dedicated to making the neighborhood and the words a better place. There are tens of thousands of clubs worldwide and we have 5 right here in the Conejo Valley. I would encourage anyone interested in service to the community to give me a call. Our Rotary clubs have a unique way of recognizing achievement among the members by assigning them a fine. I bet that all of these nice things I am saying about Rotary will not get me exempted from the next fine session. Luckily it is all for charity.)

 

 

Dr. Michael Zapf is a board certified podiatrist with offices in Agoura and Thousand Oaks. For more information you can call his office at (818) 707-3668.

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

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Copyright © 2000 Michael A. Zapf, D.P.M., F.A.C.F.A.S., F.A.C.F.AOA.M.
Last modified: January 08, 2012