Author Topic: Footbeds for teenagers; forefoot pain  (Read 1267 times)

Svend

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Re: Footbeds for teenagers; forefoot pain
« on: January 01, 2013, 07:30:48 pm »
Lynn, Epic, perhaps I was a bit hasty in my comments. I did not intend to state that I was rejecting posted footbeds outright for all individuals.  I simply don't know enough about the different designs to understand if they are all rigid or not, and if these are indeed appropriate for certain people and their particular conditions.  My limited experience with these comes from looking at examples in ski shops, and from what my chiropractor once tried to sell me as a custom orthotic to deal with plantar fascitis -- a device that seemed to be made of fibreglass resin and was rock hard....no way was I going to put those in my sneakers.

However, it just made sense when I read Dan's comments on rigid beds causing foot pain in the context of my daughter, as the insertion of the more rigid beds (having a solid and high arch support and flat hard bottom surface) in her boots coincided with the beginnings of her problems.  I was savvy to the extra thickness being a possible problem, but the rigid nature of the bed did not occur to me as being a possible issue, until Dan's mention.

As a timeline on this, I put the new beds in just before our Banff trip in March, and by Day 4 or 5 she started complaining of swelling and pain under her metatarsals.  After we got home from that trip, she did not ski again until last week, again with the new beds in.  Upon consideration of the timing of all this, I connected the two and put the old, thinner, lower arch, more flexible Volcanos in.  She has skied three days with these since last Friday, and with progressively less pain and swelling. 

BTW, Epic, I did check the beds for curling around the sides, and did trim some material off in March when this first started.  They sat flat in the liners after that.  The old Volcanos are well-trimmed.

There are several things I now need to do:

- consult with a good bootfitter re. an appropriate footbed for her foot morphology and problem condition.  Hopefully the guy at the shop where we bought them will answer.

- have her boots punched out in the toe area to allow her some extra room there and eliminate any compression

- have her examined by a podiatrist to ensure there is no underlying exacerbating condition behind this

The principle behind allowing the foot some movement makes sense to me, but then again so does the principle of supporting the arches and holding the heel in place.  So if I can find a solution that gives the support she needs to prevent her foot from moving too much and/or collapsing, while still allowing it some movement to flex and take up stresses induced by ankle and lower leg movement, then we might be on the right track here.  Completely locking the foot in place seems all wrong, though, as any movement of the lower leg and ankle inevitably ends up being transmitted to the foot via ligaments and joints.  If the foot can't move correspondingly to take up those stresses, then that seems a recipe for trouble.  So thanks for sharing your experience with cork beds -  now I know what to avoid. 

« Last Edit: January 01, 2013, 07:40:16 pm by Svend »