Flat Feet are Painful and Expensive

[Rebel]

I have flat feet.
I only found out within the last couple of years about it actually. I have had painful feet ever since I hit puberty but I had figured that it was normal due to growing pains. Later I was slightly overweight (about 30lbs) and so I figured the pain was due to that.

It wasn't until I was 24 that the pain in my right foot became unbearable. I was using sports tape to put pressure on the arch and I was popping pain pills like candy. During a regular appointment, I was chatting to my chiropractor (who is also a podiatrist) and I happened to mention that my feet were in a bit more pain than they usually were. She had me stand in front of her and it took her one glance to determine that my feet were nearly completely flat. I had almost no arch at all and my big toes were starting to bend inwards from the stress.
As a bonus, the extra pain I was experiencing was due to a bone spur in my right foot, a common side effect of flat feet.

After the diagnosis, I was fitted for custom orthotics at a delightful $400 price.
Even with those, the pain was still getting to me.
At a recommendation, I switched my shoes to Asics gel 2170's. These shoes are so bloody fantastic, but they cost on average about $180 a pair and my 7 and a half size is impossible to find sometimes. I also have a weird way of walking that causes the padding on the inside of the heel to wear away within about 5 months, so the shoes need to be replaced pretty regularly.

I've had to send my orthotics in once already to be fixed.

I've had friends make digs at me for my shoes. I don't make a lot of money and sometimes I feel like bitching about it. Their helpful advice is to buy cheaper shoes. Why don't I just buy $20 shoes like they do? I obviously just want the expensive shoes because they look nicer. I'm so vain.

The bone spur also took nearly a year to go away. That was last year in January. Kinda feels like I'm developing another one now. Pain is getting bad lately.
I also need to wear braces on my big toes to straighten them out at night at least once a week or I will be in a lot of pain.

My flat feet have also fucked me in other ways.
My right knee cap has dislocated twice, and because of my strong leg muscles, I've had to be held down while they pulled it back into place both times.
My first hospital visit was pretty expensive and the resulting physio wasn't cheap. I had to wait over a year from my last treatment until I could have it covered by extended medical coverage.

I also have a shifty hip that I was born with but is exasperated by the flat feet. Thus my monthly chiropractor visits so that I can live without too much pain. This isn't covered by my extended medical.

I just wish I had normal feet.
Normal feet don't cost this much.
Normal feet don't cause this much pain.
I really hate my feet.

[SkullKing]

I can relate, though I don´t have it as bad as you since I don´t have the hip problem.

Only Instead of having flat feet, I have one flat foot, an done foot with excessive curvature.

[Greenday]

My left foot is flat and my right foot is almost completely flat. As a result, anything that involves running has been tougher on me. When I got back into the gym last month, I started on the treadmill after each workout (I lift weights, then do some cardio). I managed to get severe tendinitis in BOTH damn Achilles tendons. I looked it up and the main cause of tendinitis in the Achilles tendon is flat feet. Figures. Now I do the bike, but I don't burn as many calories doing it. Just now I'm feeling back to normal. If I walked, my tendons would pop and cause severe pain making it impossible to stand. If I went down stairs, I'd collapse if I wasn't holding onto a rail. That was the worst of it.

[bara]

I know exactly what you are talking about. Though to be fair, I don't think Im in nearly as rough shape as you all are.... yet. Age is a bitch.

[Andara Bledin]

Excessive pronation (rolling your feet inward) will give the appearance of a fallen or undeveloped arch but the arch will become visible when you rise up onto your toes.

If you're an adult and fully grown, orthotics might result in reduction of discomfort, but they are unlikely to create an arch and will be necessary for the rest of your life.

I was flat footed as a kid back when it was still considered a health problem (it's not, really, unless it causes discomfort or pain) and I was young enough that orthotics could be effective in creating an arch.

[Aethian]

Have you ever tried anything like these? I wear them for my two walking routes and have found them to be very helpful even with my 80 work shoes.

[ExRetailDrone]

My husband dealt with severely flat feet when he was younger. He told me stories that when he was a teenager it had gotten so bad after years of dealing with the flat feet that he was walking with his feet so curved that he was practically walking on his ankles. He eventually had to get surgery to have a titanium rod put through his ankle bone to lift up the bottom of his foot and give him an arch.

I haven't had to deal with flat feet at least, but I have my own feet problems, so I can empathize on that. Having bad feet can really interrupt your life I have bunions (thanks Mom and Grandpa) and the one on my right foot got so bad that it was sometimes painful to just have the bed sheet lay on it. When my husband got a temporary full-time professor job and had good health insurance, we decided I should really have something done about it since we'd actually be able to afford it, and who knows when we'd have good health insurance again. So, I ended up getting surgery where they cut the bone down, cut a tendon to straighten my big toe since it was bent toward my other toes because of the bunion, and stuck a titanium rod through the bone in my big toe so that the bunion wouldn't come back. Recuperating from foot surgery sucks, but I have had much fewer instances of pain, and nowhere near the intensity of pain that I had before it was done.

I hope you're able to find a solution that works better for you.

[Ginger Tea]

I've been meaning to do a thread on my right leg for a while, now it seems like I would be trying to one up one or more posters here.

Basically my whole right skeleton is different to the left, noticeable when it comes to the leg, I joke that I run out of fingers and toes to count off what's wrong, but TBH it is a high number of individual issues, some are painful two others purely cosmetic.

But I did see a specialist after my more recent development and when he suggested surgery for one of my other issues that had popped up the year prior or that year, I forget, it took 6 months from me seeing my GP to actually getting the initial lookover and 3+ for the rather pathetic follow up.
The op would fix one issue and IIR leave me in a hospital bed for 3+ months, but I would honestly have preferred amputation as it would fix ALL issues and leave me with one new one, the fact I don't have a right leg.
That and I had a job I needed for rent as we were not at that point facing mass redundancy, now I have the time to get the op if I am willing to sort out a schedule, but seeing as I still haven't got dentures 4 years after having most of my teeth extracted, I don't see it happening my end.

[AccountingDrone]

I am the reverse, my cousin Jackie was born with clubbed feet, my other cousin Ray was born with one clubbed foot [apparently in the Amish there is a lot of interesting birth defects because of the closed style of society] and I had not quite clubbed feet, but for the first 4 years I was alive I wore foot braces to bed to train my legs and feet to be more normal.
http://rosemelnickmuseum.files.wordp...9/p1010237.jpg
<shudder, talk about infant torquemada...> and while I have always had a good fairly high arch, I still had a fair amount of foot and lower leg pain when active. I must have been a masochist because I still ran about 5 miles a day throughout high school, cross country skiied and was into hiking and rock climbing.

To this day I am fairly pigeontoed, and if I lay flat and relax my toes point inwards naturally, and it is almost impossible to lay on my stomach and point my toes outwards.

[the_std]

This thread is scarily well-timed, as I just ordered my newest set of orthotics yesterday. I have the same problem as you, OP - completely flat feet, aided by a slight clubbing to both feet as well. My orthotics run $400 a pop, and because I'm a retail manager on my feet 40 hours a week, they only last about a year or so. My benefits package will only cover $200 every two years, so it's not a fun process to go through.

All I can give you are my sympathies, as I literally feel your pain. I wish there were a cheap surgery available for this kind of thing.

[BlaqueKatt]

I've had friends make digs at me for my shoes. I don't make a lot of money and sometimes I feel like bitching about it. Their helpful advice is to buy cheaper shoes. Why don't I just buy $20 shoes like they do? I obviously just want the expensive shoes because they look nicer. I'm so vain.

Two things I will NEVER cheap out on:
Bras(victoria's secret)
shoes(birkenstocks, Chacos, Dr. Marten's)

Two things that won't make much difference when you're young, but cheaping out WILL catch up to you later, ask my mom about her hammertoes from buying cheap shoes.

[AccountingDrone]

Two things I will NEVER cheap out on:
Bras(victoria's secret)
shoes(birkenstocks, Chacos, Dr. Marten's)

Two things that won't make much difference when you're young, but cheaping out WILL catch up to you later, ask my mom about her hammertoes from buying cheap shoes.

Hammertoe comes from inadequate space in the toe box, or pointy toeboxes - not cheap shoes. The most expensive manolo WTF shoes will still cause hammer toe, and my old school kmart special 19.95 sneakers never caused me hammer toe because I made sure I had adequate space for my little piggies.