Flat world means sore feet

Photo: Contributed

Maybe the world is flat?

Your home, businesses, the sidewalk, schools, and places we shop and exercise are mostly flat surfaced. The 26 bones, 33 joints and more than 100 muscles, tendons and ligaments in our feet can become tired and sometimes even painful from doing the same movements and receiving the same pressures repeatedly.

Additionally, if your feet have any alignment issues or structural changes due to a trauma, sports injury or disease process that affect the feet, the discomfort and pains may onset more easily.

A pedorthist at OKAPED can help to determine if a conservative treatment to alter pressures or motions of the feet could be helpful. These options may include footwear changes, modifications to footwear, stretching and strengthening recommendations, custom or non-custom orthotics, bracing or also referring to another health care professional once the biomechanics and alignment have been analyzed.

Since 1997 OKAPED clinicians have found often that inappropriate footwear caused or contributed to ongoing foot pain. Simply put, footwear can be medicine or a menace. The two basic categories of footwear are functional and fashion. Often when these categories merge, feet fall victim to the shoes’ “look” and their lack of functional support.

Using the appropriate shoe for the task can make all the difference when combating the effects of hard, flat floors and surfaces. One example of this is athletic footwear. This footwear is sub-categorized by how supportive or cushioned it is. Having a pedorthist assess your foot alignment and gait pattern will help you to determine what your feet require.

It is a myth that supportive footwear weakens your feet. If that were the case, hockey players, figure skaters and ski racers who spend thousands of hours in almost rigid footwear would have weak feet. They do not.

Over-supporting a foot is not ideal, either, and can in some cases cause injuries to occur. Another common source of discomfort is an improperly fitted shoe. At OKAPED we help fit feet outside the average shape with orthopedic modifications and, in some cases, specialty footwear.

Feet are complicated, and the lack of variety within an ever-growing flat world complicates our foot comfort even more. To be seen by one of our pedorthists for an assessment, call any of our five offices listed at okaped.com.