This is a post about synovial fluid, which is my favorite viscous substance produced by the human body. This post will be gross. It will involve feet, bodily fluids, and other stuff that might make you sick. There's even a really, really gross picture (it's far enough down the page that you'll miss it if you leave now). Still interested? Okay... I love this paragraph:
Synovial fluid exhibits non-Newtonian flow characteristics. The viscosity coefficient is not a constant, the fluid is not linearly viscous, and its viscosity increases as the shear rate decreases [ref].If life has a goal, I think it is to achieve non-Newtonian flow. But I digress... why are we talking about synovial fluid? Well, your body--specifically your joints--is full of it. If you've ever had a little ganglion cyst, that thing was filled with this stuff. It's the consistency of hair gel (about the same color, too) and it's job is boundary-layer lubrication: it keeps your ligaments, tendons, cartilage, and bone from rubbing up against each other too much.
The photo above is a wake downstream of a thin plate in flowing water, also known as Kármán vortex street. It's an example of Navier-Stokes equations which describe the motion of fluid substances. I don't understand any of that, but the images and ideas are beautiful.
Don't Shovel in Tennis Shoes
We do a lot of yard work around here--in fact, that's about all I've done for the past 48 hours. My specialty is jumping up and down on shovels. A few seasons ago, I did this too hard. It wasn't hard to do it too hard because I weigh too much. So I really, really, really torqued my right foot back then, and I am still having a few problems. The trauma to that area caused plantar fashiitis, from which I have now completely recovered! But there is a lingering injury to the tissue down there, and it has resulted in a series of asymptomatic ganglionic cysts. My brother-in-law and now running buddy Steve had aspirated (drained) these guys a few times. (Lest you wonder, Steve is a podiatrist--I don't let just anybody needle my dogs with a giant syringe).
Once, Steve sucked 5cc's of this wonderful stuff out of a cyst on the bottom of my foot--it came out absolutely clear, like hair gel. Another time, he got a smaller amount out--this time it was a pretty reddish-pink (I think he got some other stuff with it, and that stuff was blood). This past week, he got 8cc's of the stuff from the bottom of my foot--this time it was amber colored, like the stuff that held the mosquitoes and dinosaur blood in Jurassic Park. All of this was over the period of a few years, so don't think I'm springing leaks like crazy down there.
The middle one of the above was pretty cool--it was partly on the top of my foot, and partly on the bottom; if you squished the top, the bottom would fill up, and vice versa! How cool is that?
In all cases, these guys never hurt. But they do bother me--I don't want my precious synovial fluid leaking out all over the place. And who likes squishy bumps on their feet? Eeeuch!
At one point Steve wanted me to have one of these guys surgically removed. I even went to see a foot surgeon who made a plan to take the thing out. Had he done it, it would have looked like this:
Oh, Man! Gross! See, I told you! At any rate, I chickened out at the last minute on that surgery, which was good because the thing went away on its own. I am hoping the current one goes away, too. Steve helped by aspirating it.
The body is amazing. So these ganglion cysts--on the bottom of the feet, anyway-- appear to be nature's way of inserting a kind of Dr. Scholl's gel pad down there. I'm gellin'! The moral of the story is: use appropriate footwear when digging with a shovel, as repeatedly jumping up and down on a 1/4 thick steel rail using the weakest and most vulnerable portion of your foot while wearing New Balance cross trainers is really, really, really stupid. You'll pay for it for years by sprouting little gushy blobs on your foot. Aaaaaaah!
NOTE: I am decidedly not proud of many of my body parts, but I must speak up in the defense of my feet. I do not have gross feet. I have no problem with wearing sandals or going bare dogs. My toenails are white and neatly trimmed, I have a tasteful amount of hair on the tops, etc. My feet are not wide, goofy, discolored, or in any way weird. This cyst thing is gross, yes... but my feet aren't. So there.
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