Flat Feet and Fallen Arches: How Custom Orthotics Can Help You

In common practice, flat feet and fallen arches are often considered the same foot issue. Instead of a raised area on the inside of your footprint, your gait reveals a complete footprint when you’re walking barefoot through the sand. 

However, there are differences between the two foot conditions, though it’s subtle. Essentially, treatment is the same for mild and moderate cases. 

Hudson Valley Foot Associates, with seven locations in Kingston, New Windsor, Wappingers Falls, Hudson, Red Hook, Margaretville, and West Coxsackie, New York, specializes in custom orthotics to restore foot alignment and gait efficiency for patients with flat feet or fallen arches. 

The anatomy of the foot’s arch

When you consider that your feet bear all the force your body creates when you’re upright, walking, running, jumping, and landing, it’s surprising these comparatively small features conduct their business as routinely as they do. 

The secret is in the suspension. The bones of your feet normally form an arch that’s connected from the ball of your feet to the heel by a tough band of tissue called the plantar fascia. This band is analogous to the string in an archer’s bow that uses its tension to propel arrows. 

The plantar fascia serves as the suspension and shock absorber of the foot, comfortably enabling you to bear the forces your feet experience daily. 

Flat feet and fallen arches

When the entire sole of your foot touches the ground when bearing the weight of your body, you have a flat-footed condition. There is a range of variations with these conditions. 

Babies are born with flat feet. Most people develop foot arches between the ages of three and six. Sometimes, an arch never forms. 

In other cases, a person forms arches naturally, but the arches collapse later in life. This is what’s referred to as a “fallen” arch. 

Flat feet can be flexible or rigid, congenital or acquired (fallen arches). 

How custom orthotics can help you

Custom orthotics are form-fitted shoe inserts made from molds or scans of your feet and constructed to provide arch support, helping counteract the effects of flat feet. 

Orthotics can prevent symptoms like pain and strain in the feet, ankles, knees, hips, and lower back. When the orthotic holds the arch in a normal position, it prevents overpronation, an inward rotation of the feet that interferes with the intended balance of your musculoskeletal system. 

This correction restores efficiency and functionality to your balance, gait, and overall stability, and eliminates associated aches and pain. Orthotics are a non-invasive, drug-free treatment that sends a positive cascade up the kinetic chain of your body. 

Visit Hudson Valley Foot Associates to learn more about how custom orthotics can help clear up a range of flat-footed symptoms. Call or click to arrange an appointment with the nearest of our offices today.