A recurrent topic I’ve discussed with patients this week is footwear.
I’ve had more than one patient tell me how their back, knees and feet all hurt … and then didn’t hurt based on what shoes they were wearing.
Firstly, one patient loved to wear a particular type of boot with a short heel and he was fine. Then he started wearing flat shoes and had a problem. When he went back to wearing his original shoes, he got better!
Another patient noted that as his shoes started wearing out on the outside (lateral) aspect, he would get back pains. As soon as he got new shoes, that improved.
Now one thing to say is that if you have back, hip, knee or foot pain and are overweight, then losing weight may improve the pain. I’m sure you already know that, but it would be remiss of me not to mention it. Moving on, the next thing to say clearly is that your shoes are very important!
If you’re not sure what shoes would be best for your foot, then talk to a podiatrist about it. Note that we have a very experienced podiatrist, David Lee, who works across several of our clinics. Otherwise, just keep in mind that to be active, your foot health goes a long way and your ability to walk should not be taken for granted. So, it’s worthwhile caring about what shoes you wear.
My personal reflection of this is from running; it always feels better with a newer pair of shoes. Once they get worn in, just a little bit, you reach a sweet spot. A short funny story was that fairly recently I bought new running shoes and when I brought them home, two of my sons both agreed that the shape of the sole wasn’t right because it didn’t give good ankle support. Of course, I scoffed at them and labelled them shoe snobs after which I went for a run and nearly rolled my ankle on the beach. Damn kids!
Anyway, the moral of the story is that we should all care about our footwear so we can better look after our feet, ankles, lower legs, upper legs, hips and back! It is in reality very much a case of, “The foot bone’s connected to the leg bone,” and the rest of The Skeleton Dance song that I’m going to have in my head all day now!
Driven by Soul,
Dr Floyd Gomes
