Flat feet

[swissmiss04]

I was "blessed" with flat feet. I went shopping for some new running shoes today and the guy said I need motion control shoes. That's great because they're at least $20 more than all the ones I was looking at.

Is there a way to cure flat feet? Surgery? Exercises?

[sairose]

I don't think there is a way to correct it. A good friend of mine also has flat feet, and she says she can't do a lot of things because of them (like running, apparantly). It must really suck.

But maybe you could ask your doctor about it. Perhaps there is a surgery that I don't know about!

[DolphinChicaDDD]

Orthotics.
It doesn't correct them in the sense a surgery would, but it fixes the problem when you wear sneakers. Certain shoes are much better for flat feet too. If you plan to seriously run, I would make the investment in both seeing a doctor (to get orthotics) and stability shoes.

[cuaphi]

Well, I have a yoga teacher who was telling us once that years of bad foot placement killed his arch but by focusing on proper rotation of the foot in certain poses he was able to get it back. I have no idea how to explain how that might work though.

[thetalady]

I inherited them, too

They have caused me years of misery. As the foot rolls inward because there is no arch, it screws up the bones in your ankle, which screws up your knees, and then the hips and back. Thelack of an arch can stretch the ligaments with all that pulling & then your ankles will be weak the rest of your life.

Go to a podiatrist, preferably one who is also an MD, for an evaluation. There is no surgical fix that I know of. You need a custom orthotic to raise your arch and put everything else back into line. They have really been a tremendous help for me. They are expensive (about $300) but sometimes insurance covers them.

DO NOT waste your money on over the counter, ready made orthotics. They can actually cause more damage to your structure by overcorrecting the arch. You cannot afford to pound on your feet by running without resolving the arch problem. Shoes alone cannot fix the problem, either.

[Nikki_DZ]

My dad was also blessed with extremely (absolutely no arch) flat feet. Blessed, I say, because they kept him from being drafted in Vietnam Not so blessed because he always had problems standing (especially on concrete) for more than 10 minutes at a time. The older he got, the worse the pain became. The constant impact on his legs was destroying his shin bones.

My senior year of college he had surgery on both feet to essentially rebuilt them (I don't know the clinical term). Basically they sliced into the back of his ankle....I know he has a bunch of screws and such in there. It was an extremely painful surgery, and he was in a wheelchair (having had both feet done at once) for about 2 months-should have been longer, but he's stubborn. Now, however, he's 50 times happier.

[swissmiss04]

Thanks for all the responses. I probably will go to my podiatrist and see about getting something to correct the problem. The surgery that Nikki_DZ described sounds scary, but at the same time, if I knew it would fix this, I'd go through with it.

Flat feet kept my Dad out of Vietnam, too, I think.

[KSigkid]

I have flat feet but have never had problems. My parents had me see a podiatrist when I was younger, but haven't seen one in quite a while. I work out quite a lot, including a lot of running, and have never really had any problems.