Many people are afflicted with feet that get quickly sore and tired. Whilst this can be at the end of the day, sometimes the pain can arise after only a surprisingly short period of standing. Whilst we commonly think of shoes being the cause of these problems often the problem is the relative hypermobility of the bones of the feet and of the lower limbs.
With prolonged standing there is settling of the arch of the foot causing the soft tissues structures such as ligaments and tendons that would support the foot to become fatigued and sore. This is one of the reasons why standing can be so difficult for so many people whereas walking even for a few steps affords much relief. There are some genetic conditions which lead to generalised hypermobility.
Some people are just more flexible than others. At school you may recall children demonstrating how they can quickly tie themselves into a knot – great fun at the time but with age, these aches become a nuisance. As life goes on, being too flexible can often cause people to need to live with more ongoing discomfort.
There is an argument that it is better to be relatively stiff than too flexible. For example, when there is a lack of movement of a knee joint there is usually then not enough movement available at the knee joints to then help to absorb the shock of the impact of the foot striking the ground.
If the foot then needs to move to accommodate for some anomaly of the ground such as walking on a slope or stepping on a rock, that would increase the strain elsewhere of the lower limb. The best shock absorption is through movement though reduction of movement and weight bearing activities can be quite jarring.
At the Brunswick & Sandringham Foot clinics our practitioners can assess the ability of your lower limbs to determine what can be done to reduce the aching of your legs and feet which so dreadfully plagues the feet and lower limbs of so many people.
Brunswick Foot Clinic and Sandringham Foot Clinic provide podiatric care for locals of and visitors to greater Melbourne, including Coburg, Hampton, Cheltenham, Moorabin, Highett, Brighton and Blackrock.
