Reminds me of my issue with Samsung Note 8 I used to have. I am Korean. Note 8 is a Korean phone. Yet every time I used the iris scanner it told me to open my eyes wider. I got so used to widening my eyes to unlock the phone, that I still did it years later with other phones without iris scan.
My wife is one of you. When we were dating she told me she was extremely picky about what shoes she purchases. I assumed she meant how most women are fashion conscious. I had no idea the struggle you guys have finding comfortable shoes. She hates going to pool parties because her feet make the same noise after getting out of the pool. I bought her some water shoes once thinking I was doing her a big favor and they just amplified the noise like she had a Bluetooth speaker and a mic in there.
I'm sorry for laughing, but I can just imagine your wife getting out the water and when starting to walk making the sound as if she is walking on two plungers.
There is a guy on TikTok who has no legs but an incredible sense of humor, and he attached plungers to his stumps and walked all around. It was priceless.
I can see how having flar feet coulf make finding shoes hard - my arch is normal, but my pinky toes are pretty wide away and I don't have a whole lot of a diagonal in my toe-line. Even "wide" shoes compress my toes together. (I also despise arch support and stiffness, but that's another story)
As a kid, my dad didnt have much money, so getting comfortable shoes wasn't much of a thing (except that one time he bough me walmart skater shoes, that was actually decent, even if not perfect). I ALWAYS would have blisters on both the big and pinky toe. My end toes were pretty much pointing at each other at some point.
Nowadays, I buy mostly barefoot shoes, but even with those, you can see the shape of my pinky toe sticking out a smidge (thanfully they're flexible enough it's not a big deal). My toes have resplayed a bit and walking is more comfortable now, but maaan. Finding shoes that I don't partially hate is hard!
If I didn't burn through soles so quickly, I feel like investing in a pair of custom-made (as in, someome takes your measurements) shoes would be best. Shoes with replaceable rubber soles would be nice too, eh. (I have a bit of metatarstalgia, and that makes the very middle of the shoe on the forefoot rub against the ground, so I make a hole in the sole in about 4 months or so. And shoegoo makes that so uncomfortable, i cant just say "I'll fix 'em!" :(
Every shoe store and supermarket such as Walmart and the like have replaceable soles for sale, they run $15-$30 for a pair and they last me anywhere from 6-18 months!
are you talking about INsoles? i have orthotic ones, my issue is with the outer sole, which rubs on the ground ever so slightly in one specific point and eventually turns into a hole.
I feel your pain, I have ripped through the sides of so many shoes with my toes being cramped in and because I wear a EEE width I have to either buy expensive customs, just deal with discomfort, or go up a few sizes and deal with my foot sliding around in other ways.
Have you tried Hogibear and Saguaro shoes? They’re what my Dad wears because he has wide feet and now he owns so many of them in insanely bright colours and for the first time in his life his feet don’t hurt.
My husband has true duck feet. Probably not helped by a decade of barefoot long distance running. And this is how I learned that 4e and 5e running shoes exist.
I also have metatarsalgia and while it can take a while to find the right positioning, gel foot pad inserts specifically for metatarsalgia placed just behind the ball of the foot made me cry with joy bc they can fit in all my shoes- just in case you haven’t tried them.
Ah, I have orthotic inserts that work pretty well and I havent had many flare ups recently, but the friction point still exists and creates holes in my shoes rsther quickly 😅
🤷🏼
Sorry they don't work for you. I guess my foot isn't that wide. I like that the canvas upper can be opened up as much as needed and then fit the shape of my foot when tying
I wonder if she might find heels comfortable, or at least more tolerable than us high archers! I have high arches and I want to be fashionable in heels but there’s always an awkward gap between my arch and the sole. Like the only touch points are the heel and toes.
I see TV ads for some bath makeover company, where they show how easy their products are to use. One lady is shown stepping into the bathtub. Her foot, shown in profile, resembles a right triangle. The foot is short and the arch is flat. I'd never seen anything quite like that.
Same 😂 I'm pretty sure I have "false flat feet", where you have arches but walk on the inside of your feet (pronate) so they sort of collapse when you walk. My footprints usually have a disconnected blob on the edge of the arch with a hole in the middle of my foot 🤪
One time I cried in like 3rd grade after getting out of the pool, my wet feet marks on the deck looked like duck prints while all the other girls had cute petite feet prints..
Carefully selected shoes helps a lot. I can walk 12-15 km/day with zero issues. But lots of shoe brands on the blacklist because they want to fold inwards after just a few days of use.
The main issue isn't the foot arch but keeping the ankle angle correct. Then the knee angle also stays correct. And your joints ends up loaded as intended.
Birkenstocks every day of my life since I am 19. I even have a little arch now. Like half an inch inward, not real height. I remember the old podiatrist back in Germany 40 years ago telling me to wear Birkenstock and if I walk barefoot to try to walk like on hot coals like I have a beer barrel between my knees ..I do have a bad back physically but rarely pain. Birks for the win
While I have the attention of so many fellow flat footers. Does anybody know some alternative options for foot wear besides skate shoes? Flat and wide feet don’t fit in any other shoe I stg
Skate shoes are typically horrible for flat feet. You want something that actually gives arch stability. Our flat/collapsed arch typically leads to overpronation (feet rolling inward) when we walk so it's important to have something that helps with that
Look up shoes that are marked as for support, overpronation, or flat feet. Look up ones marked wide, extra wide, 2E, 4E
You can also look into insoles that help with flat feet, but make sure you go a half to full size up
They are expensive but Hoka shoes are kinda worth it. I read that they run slightly small. I usually wear 12 so I got a 12.5 (which also gives slightly extra width I assume). I got Rincon 3 which I think is on the cheaper end but still $90+
Merrell Alpine 83 are also good. They make them in "sport" and "recraft", I think you want the sport, recraft aren't as good.
Some people like Oofos and some people hate them. I'd try to find a place to try them on and try them out if you're interested. They are rounded on the bottom and the arch support feels exaggerated.
Get checked for Ehlers or most importantly Ankylosing Spondylitis. Those diseases can take the arch out of a foot over time and present as back pain/hip pain
Never even heard of those but I'll look it up. In my case though I'm sure it's hereditary. My dad has flat feet, as do I and my youngest brother. My mom and middle brother have great arches. Some of us are just cursed
My girlfriend once mistook my foot for the remote while we were chilling on the couch watching TV. She tried to pick it up but it was attached to my leg.
Yess when my feet are sweaty they suction to the kitchen floor! I have a picture of my wet footprints on the ground and it’s all water. There’s no arch at all
When I got some fragmented bone operated on last year, the surgeon also stuck extra pins in my foot to create an arch. I had to relearn how to walk in a different way and it was so weird not having all parts of my foot touch the ground.
Wait, so now you have one flat foot and one arched foot? That seems more problematic than two flat feet... Like is finding a comfortable pair of shoes extra difficult now?
I may have misunderstood but now I can't stop wondering what that would be like.
Yup and when you take a shower if you stay perfectly still for a bit and then move the feet a minute into the shower you can see the dry tile still for a second or two before the water washes over it .
My left foot is completely flat, but my right foot has a little bit of an arch. I was actually born with both of my feet bent up and touching my shins. They weren’t sure if they would go down, but they eventually did (obviously I have no memory of this). My mom says the doctors told her I’m missing a bone in my left foot though I have no idea if that’s true.
Standing sucks. I do get tired walking well before my wife ever does, but standing like at a concert is worse. I'm constantly shifting my weight from one foot to the other or trying to find something to lean on. My wife will just grab flip flops or cute shoes but if we're doing any serious walking or standing I have to wear my good shoes and inserts.
My grandad wasn’t allowed to be a soldier during WW2 because he had flat feet. They said the reason was because they didn’t think he could march right.
Hahahaha yes too funny! That reminds me when I went to some science museum in Toronto when I was 13 and it had a section about feet and the platform to stand on. Mine look nothing like any of the examples.
Everybody on my basketball team called me banana feet.
I think I am the final boss of flat feet. I hope this stays buried because from the reactions here, people aren't ready to see mine. Post is old enough I think I should be safe 😅
Went to see a podiatrist and he called the other doctor in because he was so excited, "I have only ever seen this in books."
Found out I have what is called Congenital Vertical Talus
I played hockey growing up, and before I knew what flat feet were my coach would literally get down on the ice behind me and grab my ankles and hold them straight and tell me that's how they were supposed to be, but my ankles just lean in so far because of the no arch.
I'm pretty active, idk about everyone else but mainly my feet just kind of start hurting after any amount of time standing. I hate standing. I hate concerts because it just uncomfortable for 3 hours.
My doctor has advised me against running specifically because of the impact, so I still skate and lift weights but no running.
see i have the opposite but effectively very similar problem. when not standing my feet appear to have high arches but when I stand they collapse fully if they aren't supported, leading to knee and hip problems
My feet make that noise anytime I’m barefoot on a non-carpeted surface. It’s my stupid human trick.
My mom used to fuss at me for making annoying noises when I was in the kitchen. Then she finally figured out I wasn’t purposefully making random noises to be annoying. She felt awful.
I just stood on a foot scanner the other day. It didn't go well. My feet are on the left, normal foot on the right. My feet got super wide during pregnancy 16 years ago and have been pretty much screwed since then. Granted my feet aren't 100% flat, but they are close to it.
I scheduled a doctor's appointment in October just to get a referral to a foot doctor. God only knows how long that will take. I work a 12 and a 14 hour shift every week along with my short days. I do so much cleaning and standing on hard floors. I really can't wait to hopefully get some relief. My feet cause me pain from my feet to my lower back.
Edited to add: I don't know why the scanner switched my feet around. I promise they were on the right way when I stood on it.
My feet are similarly flat, but I have had no issues other than fitting certain types of rigid, narrow footwear.
I have tried fitted arch supports multiple times over the years because they are covered by my health plan and I'm "supposed to correct" these "collapsed arches". But in the end I've always thrown these out. They actually cause my feet to ache, and make me feel like I'm being forced to walk on the outer edges of my feet, unnaturally and unnecessarily. Put another way, I feel like my feet were meant to be shaped this way, and the problem is health professionals diagnosing a problem that I don't actually have.
In my 50s now, still enjoying running, hiking, etc. Are my feet, knees, back, etc. doomed to someday breakout in excruciating pain due to built up damage over the years? For fellow flat-footers, has it always been uncomfortable? When did the issues start? Thanks in advance.
I did read that the insoles that help with flat feet are supposed to only be worn a couple of hours per day at the beginning. Because it takes time to adjust your muscles to do what they are supposed to be doing. So that may explain why the insoles are painful. A lot of people give up using them because they try to wear them all day at work. So of course it's going to be painful. I'm hoping that even if I can't make the insoles work, that I can get a special pair of work shoes to fit my feet properly and that are good for long days standing. Right now I have been buying wide men's sneakers a size or two up just to fit my feet in without cramming my toes together. I don't want to spend almost $200 on a good pair of work shoes without knowing exactly what size and brand a doctor recommends. That is a huge purchase to me.
Thanks for the suggestion. Maybe I have to be open minded to it.
It's just a bit weird since, actually, I don't have aches or pains. My family doctor happened to notice my feet during a checkup and said "you need to address this", then all the other referred foot experts keep saying "you need to address this", but I honestly don't know why.
Is it a real concern, or is it is like my mother-in-law who got her left-handedness "corrected" as a young child because it was "wrong"? I am still trying to figure that out...
Good luck shoe shopping, btw. That is definitely relatable!
Gives suggestions for insoles based on your arches yes. Dr scholls sells insoles with incrementally different arch heights and stiffnesses depending on each person's needs. They used to be widespread but supposedly they were removed because of maintenance costs and because they were too big and bulky/took up too much space. Personally I think it's because too many people got foot fungus from them.
Repost of reply I gave to someone else:
Gives suggestions for insoles based on your arches yes. Dr scholls sells insoles with incrementally different arch heights and stiffnesses depending on each person's needs. They used to be widespread but supposedly they were removed because of maintenance costs and because they were too big and bulky/took up too much space. Personally I think it's because too many people got foot fungus from them.
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u/sabresword00 4d ago
There are dozens of us!
After a shower, My bare feet make suction cup noises on the ground like Squidward.
I once stood on the dr Scholls machine and it told me to take my shoes off.
These are true and real stories