Fashion vs. your feet

Do your­self a favor this sum­mer and wear prop­erly fit­ted shoes. Your feet — and maybe your back, neck shoul­ders and legs — will love you for it.

Although genet­ics and active lifestyles play a role, many foot prob­lems could be elim­i­nated if peo­ple bought shoes that felt good. Instead, many men and espe­cially women choose fash­ion over com­fort and wear shoes that squeeze their toes, scrape their heels and fail to sup­port their arches.

The biggest cul­prits we see in offend­ing footwear are high heels and flip-flops.

Not only do high heels cause foot pain and defor­mi­ties, they also cause neck, back and shoul­der pain for the way they redis­trib­ute our weight and make us walk. Recent stud­ies have linked high heels with arthri­tis, an unnat­ural gait, ingrown toe­nails and pinched nerves. I had one patient who said switch­ing to more com­fort­able shoes elim­i­nated her headaches.

Pro­longed wear­ing of high heels actu­ally can change your anatomy; it short­ens and thick­ens your Achilles ten­don and tight­ens your calf mus­cles to the point that some women, later in life, strug­gle to com­fort­ably walk bare­foot or return to flat shoes.

The nar­row toe box in many high heels crushes the toes together. Dan­ger increases with the height of the heel. For instance, the dif­fer­ence between a three-inch heel and a one-inch heel is seven times your body weight on the balls of your feet.

Other com­mon prob­lems related to high heels are corns and cal­luses, bunions and ham­mer toe. Remem­ber, foot pain is not nor­mal. If your feet hurt when you walk, it might be time to think about a shoe change.

We rec­og­nize that many women are reluc­tant to give up their high heels. A sur­vey recently con­ducted by the Amer­i­can Podi­atric Med­ical Asso­ci­a­tion showed that 42 per­cent of women would wear a shoe even if it caused dis­com­fort and 73 per­cent already admit­ted hav­ing a shoe-related foot issue. We’ve read reports of women who have had parts of their toes ampu­tated so they could bet­ter fit into heels.

We’re urg­ing women to limit heels to spe­cial occa­sions for short peri­ods of time. Con­sis­tent, pro­longed wear dra­mat­i­cally raises the risk of prob­lems. Here are some other ways you can con­tinue to enjoy wear­ing heels, with precautions.

• Wear wedge heels instead of stilet­tos; they main­tain a more solid foundation.

• Limit the drop between the heel and the fore­foot to no more than one and one-half inches.

• Engage in a stretch­ing rou­tine, have a hot bath or mas­sage, to loosen mus­cles and ten­dons stressed after wear­ing high heels.

• Buy shoes at the end of the day when feet are at their longest.

• Leave enough room for half the width of your thumb between the longest toe and the end of the shoe.

One of the biggest prob­lems we see with flip-flops is the devel­op­ment of plan­tar faci­itis, an aching pain or ten­der­ness in the heel that is often caused by inad­e­quate sup­port and cush­ion­ing. Flip-flops also tend to widen the feet, mak­ing it hard for some chronic wear­ers to go back to their reg­u­lar shoe. Like high heels, flip-flips are fine in mod­er­a­tion. But when worn daily for pro­longed peri­ods, they expose the feet to injuries, sun­burn and stress fractures.

We want you to enjoy the shoes you love and that make you look good. We just don’t want you to hurt your­self in the process.

Dr. Jane E. Graeb­ner is a podi­a­trist and active mem­ber of the Grady Memo­r­ial Hos­pi­tal med­ical staff.

Posted by Grady Memorial Hospital on Jun 6 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.