5 Ways Custom Orthotics Can Improve Your Life
Custom orthotics can change the way you feel about your feet. At the Center for Podiatric Care and Sports Medicine, we evaluate your feet and customize these inserts to help reduce pain from a number of conditions and reform your foot function.
Custom orthotics are far superior to one-size-fits-all versions you grab from a drugstore shelf. They are made for your feet, so you know the fit will be right. Plus, they provide just the right prescription to make you feel supported, cushioned, and pain-free.
Drugstore versions may give you instant relief and extra cushion, but they can’t fix your foot pain because they aren’t designed for you.
Read on to learn the five primary benefits of getting custom foot orthotics.
Improve flat feet or support high arches
If you have flat feet, pressure on your feet can lead to severe pain that flows up the kinetic chain. Customized orthotics improve the function and alignment of your feet as well as reduce stress. The impact from walking, running, or sports won’t be as damaging to your body.
If you have high arches in your feet, you sometimes experience an increased level of stress on your joints, from your knees to your hips to your spine. Orthotics provide support for your body that high arches can’t.
Alleviate arthritis pain
Customized orthotics can help alleviate foot, and even full body, pain associated with arthritis. The orthotics soften each step and ease impact. This alleviates pain shooting into other joints, such as your ankles, knees, hips, and back.
Custom orthotics also help propel your foot forward with minimal joint motion, making your steps more comfortable. You may even find you have a slight spring in your step due to orthotics.
Correct body position
You may think orthotics are just for foot pain, but body aches and back pain often start from your foundation — your feet. Orthotics support the anatomical arches of your foot, putting your body into alignment. When your body is stacked and positioned right over your feet, you experience less pain all over your body.
Ease bunions and calluses
Bunions and calluses form due to friction and pressure on your feet. With the support of orthotics, you experience a better fit in shoes and greater support. In the case of bunions, the custom orthotics can take pressure off the big toe, correcting the position of the foot. Orthotics can help prevent friction, too, which leads to calluses, corns, and blisters.
Help manage the effect of diabetes
People with diabetes often have poor circulation and are susceptible to infection and foot pain as a result. Custom orthotics relieve excess pressure that makes it painful to walk when you have advanced diabetes. Custom orthotics can offer shock absorption and comfort to hurting feet.
If your feet’s muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones aren’t in optimal position, the result can be pain and fatigue in your feet, and often elsewhere in your body. Our team of expert podiatrists are ready to help with custom orthotics and other valuable treatments so you can walk and play without pain. Call us today or schedule online.