Flat foot (also called pes planus or a fallen arch) refers to a medical condition in which the arch of the foot that supports the body to stand or move is either absent or so weak that it flattens out when the person is on their feet as it is not strong enough to take the body weight. It can cause pain in the foot, ankle, knee, lower back and even the neck, as the foot is unable to handle the reactive forces or shock that emanates from the ground while walking or running. Flat feet can be corrected with the right insoles and strengthening of the foot.
Podiapro helps patients get pain relief from flat feet and can also help reverse your flat feet by getting you to build your arches back, with custom arch support, proprioceptive insoles, custom orthopedic shoes for flat feet and progressively strengthening exercises.
Are you or someone you love suffering from painful flat feet? Get in touch for pain relief and comfort.
Here is some information on flat feet that could help you get a better understanding and guide you to take the right steps towards getting pain relief or even correction from the foot deformity of having no medial arch.
A flat foot causes the entire sole of the foot, also known as the plantar surface, to come into complete or near-complete contact with the ground. This is different from a normal foot where the area of the arch, also known as the medial longitudinal arch or simply the medial arch, does not come in contact with the ground even when the person is on their feet. The medial arch supports the body weight and provides shock absorption when the person walks or runs. Absence of the medial arch causes the foot to lose its shock absorbing capability. This can add strain to the ankle and can cause foot pain, knee pain, lower back pain and even neck pain.
At Podiapro, the most common grouse most parents of young adults have is that their family doctor or their orthopedic doctor did not educate them on their children having flat feet, that they were not made aware of this condition by anyone else they might have taken early steps towards getting their children treatment for flat feet.
Usually, flat feet are very common and nothing to worry about. Adults shouldn’t bother about them until they start causing discomfort or pain. But for children who are below the age of 14, taking early action can successfully reverse many conditions of flat feet, a lot more easily compared to adults.
You should consult a podiatrist or a prosthetist or orthotist specializing with the feet for your flat feet when you qualify for any of the following:
Flat feet can be classified into two categories:
Flat feet do not affect the daily lives of every person having them. However, they do mean that the foot is not able to handle load the way it’s supposed to. Parts of the leg that are not designed to handle load or stress are forced to handle it because the feet, without arches, are not able to handle stress effectively. And this stress is passed upward through the kinetic chain. Flat feet can cause the ankles to pronate or turn inwards excessively and this subjects the inside of the feet, ankles, shins, knees to higher amounts of stress and strain. Flat feet can cause:
Anybody who has flat feet could suffer from overall postural misalignment. When the medial arch of the foot collapses, the person experiences internal tibial torsion, meaning the shin bone and in effect the knee and the thigh born twist inwards. The hip tilts forward and the lower back develops an exaggerated curve. This misalignment can extend upwards to the upper back, shoulders and neck as well – having the ability to cause pain in all these misaligned joints.
Though all babies are born with flat feet, they develop their arches by the age of 5. However, some do not develop arches at all and it could be hereditary. The flat foot syndrome is in the genes and just runs in the family. Or some people have flat feet due to a developmental fault during childhood.
Others develop flat feet due to a weakening of the muscles in the foot due to aging, pregnancy, being overweight, incorrect footwear or an injury. Pathological conditions like arthritis, diabetic foot neuropathy, club foot, posterior tibial tendonitis and posterior tibial tendon dysfunction can also cause the foot to go flat as the bones get misaligned because of the loss of the support that was being provided by the tendon.
If you place your foot in fine sand, or if you just wet your foot and check your footprint on a dark surface, you will see your entire foot is in contact with the ground, as in the image below. You will not see an arch in your footprint. Your foot shape will be wider than usual due to flattening of the medial arch.
At our clinic, we diagnose the foot condition with a foot pressure scan. We use a start of the art device called a pressure plate, to assess whether a patient has flat feet. The device has pressure sensors that sense the foot pressure as the patient stands on the plate and it outputs a pressure map of the patient’s feet to show if the feet are flat, or normal, or have excessively high arches. This assessment is helpful as it also shows the pressure in different zones of the foot like the heel, the ball of the foot, the toes and also the pressure distribution between the right and left feet – if it’s equal or unequal – all of which give us insight into the nature of flat footedness. The device also measures the surface area of each foot and if one is more than the other, it might mean that foot is flatter than the other provided the feet have the same length and width. We use the same measure to see the extent of reversal of a flat foot – by what percentage has the surface area of the foot reduced after treatment with insoles and strengthening.
The pain emanating from a flat foot can be managed by correctly made insoles. They have to be made in accordance with the patient’s foot’s sub-talar joint axis. Insoles made not in accordance with this axis may only aggravate the pain caused by flat feet.
At Podiapro, we begin treatment for pain caused by flat feet with a thorough biomechanical assessment of the patient’s lower leg. We check the ease of flexing the foot upward and downward, the type of flat foot (flexible or rigid) and test the patient’s strength levels. We check the knee structure and if there’s a pelvic tilt. Then we conduct static and dynamic foot pressure assessments as the patient stands and walks over our pressure plate.
Post the assessment, we design custom orthotics that would provide support to the foot and gradually reduce the pain. In some cases of rigid flat feet, we start with very minimal correction in the insoles and then progressively add more correction through the weeks as the patient starts adapting and getting warmed up with the lower level corrections.
The answer is yes. Most cases of flexible flat feet and collapsed arches can be corrected with prolonged use of corrective or rehabilitative insoles and a disciplined exercise program to strengthen the arches. For some rigid and extremely painful conditions, reconstructive surgery could be an option. We have seen many cases in both children and adults where arches have developed within 12 to 24 months of using our insoles supplemented with a disciplined exercise routine. The foot pressure scans show a remarkable difference in the before and after scans.
C 1, Gate No. 2, Shreyas Industrial Estate
Off Western Express Highway
Goregaon East
Mumbai 400063, India
All our products, including our insoles, footwear and components are 100% cruelty free and vegan in nature. We use vegan leather only.