Flat foot is medically known as pes-planu-valgus where your foot doesn’t have the curve on the inner border of the foot. There are different types of flatfeet e.g structural flatfoot and/or functional flatfoot. Foot is made of 26 bones, arranged in a manner to provide sock absorbing aches/curves in our feet for active living.

In structural flatfoot, bones are mall-aligned and we can’t restore the arch with external forces. In addition to that, a person with structural flatfoot is not able to stand on his/her forefoot or toes.

However, in functional flatfoot we are able to get arch during the physical examination with the help of external forces. We can also witness the presence of arch in flexible flatfoot patients during tip toe walking. This is mostly due to hyper laxity or dysfunction of stabilizing muscles of medial arch.

Flatfoot remains painless until you start getting the complications. It includes foot/ankle pain and in advance cases you experience pain in the knee, hip and/or lower back. Often such pains are associated with limb length problem where on of your leg could be shorter then the other one. That can lead to pain on one side and could affect the muscles and joints of lower limb due to bio-mechanical dysfunction.

Causes of flatfeet are very much unknown. One of the reason could be hereditary or it could be acquired due to an injury or environmental factors such as flat flooring and shoes at early walking age could also lead to the flattening of your feet.

Many people believe that flatfoot is not an issue to fix unless it is painful and affecting the daily living of a person. In my point of view, it should be addressed as soon as you discover that you or your family member has flatfoot. The reason to fix it the earliest is to delay/ or absolute the complications to ensure the active and healthy living. It could also help us to avoid knee knocking and repeated fall in childhood.

Primarily flatfoot is managed by over the shelve or custom made inner soles to stabilize your foot and to ensure the proper weight and pressure distribution on your feet. This should be done under the supervision of qualified and experienced orthotics professional to ensure the maximum compliance.

If you need further information about flatfoot, please feel free to contact me!