Footwear is a very important part of pedorthics. The fact is, you can not wear a foot orthosis without footwear. You can make bad footwear better with orthotics, but the better your footwear is, the better your orthotics will perform.

 

At Foot Support we categorize footwear into three types: Healing, Protective and Abusive. It is very important to understand the three types.

 

Healing Footwear:

Shoes and orthotics used to treat injuries and pain, need to treat the cause of the problem and not just the pain. Enhancing poor mechanics will increase your conditioning. Daily activities will now enhance your therapy and increase your conditioning, allowing for a more active and healthy life style. A dynamic foot orthosis designed and fitted for a specific persons biomechanical needs, along with a shoe that fits their foot type and has the mechanical features needed, truly has the ability to heal and prevent further pain or injury.

 

Protective Footwear:

This can be a combination of a bad shoe and a good orthosis, a good shoe with no orthosis, or with fairly good shoe and a prefabricated orthosis. These combinations may control your pain, but they do not enhance biomechanics to further enhance overall body function. Age and gravity are stressful to all of us. Our real goal is to enhance function and maintain overall conditioning.

 

Abusive Footwear:

This type of footwear is just that, "Abusive". It may fit you well and be comfortable, but does nothing for your pain or injury. This type of footwear does not have the suport needed to allow you to heal. Simply put, if you broke your arm the doctor would cast it to control movement and you would heal. The problem with foot pain is that you can take your shoes  and orthotics off too easily. Properly made orthotics fit to good footwear should be comfortable and worn like a cast, 24/7, for six weeks to heal. Once you are better, it would then be okay to not always wear your orthotics, but atleast wear protective footwear. 

 

At Foot Support we strive to fit you with the correct shoes for your pedorthic needs. Some of the brands we stock are Brooks, New Balance, Rockport, Dr Comfort, Ariat, Drew, and others we are able to special order. Many of these same brand names meet the criteria for the Diabetic Shoe Bill.

 

If we are unable to fit you properly with an appropriate shoe for your needs, we will help with educating you in the proper type of footwear. You should then be able to find the footwear in a retail enviroment that best suits your needs.

 

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