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DelilahDeb -> RE: Foot arch? (4/21/2008 7:58:54 AM)
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Depending on your age, the bones in your foot have not fused, they have merely gotten habituated.
I had extremely high arches (along with bunyons and claw toes) that I misunderstood an orthopedist who told my mother (when I was 14) that it would take much more than standard bunyon surgery to fix my bunyons because (as I understood it) the bones in my instep were malformed. When I was 37, I went to a podiatrist for x-rays and eval, and learned that I'd understood incorrectly, they were only malpositioned. (Twenty-twenty hindsight...my "high arches" were about 1/3 of the way to being Chinese bound feet.)
So I took the question to my chiropractor, is there anything I can do about it? (Because I already knew that soft tissue—ligaments and such—can be changed, if only with some pain.) And the upshot was that, over the course of four years of regular chiropractic care (1-2 appts/mo), chiro suggestions as to ways to change my walk to support kinesological changes, annually updated custom orthotics (shoe insert/support for main and metatarsal arch), along with me doing exercises to learn to control my toes individually...my shoe size went from 9 1/2 to 11+ in women's US sizes (was 39, now 42-43 in Birkenstocks), my arches "fell" about half their distance, and I learned how to do serious foot massage, most of which I can do to myself.
In the course of that chiro work, I must say, I learned a whole lot about bottom space (not sub space, bottom space...dealing with necessary pain); the most excruciating session of which was the day that the chiro broke up all the accumulated and crystallized lactic acid (the fatigue poison that causes muscle cramps) that was built up in the muscles of my arches.
Anyway, I've no idea of your age (the younger the easier), but I know that you can make body changes with determination, education (I studied a book on the anatomy of the extremities), and skilled assistance. I still have bunyons, and milder claw toes, and if I want to lose them I'll prolly still need surgery. But a much less invasive overhaul, with surgical techniques 20 years advanced. And, you know, the podiatrist predicted major arthritic pain in 10 years post change (though he was impressed by the change, and puzzled)...and I'm making a liar of him 15 years later.
Best of luck, and learn stretches of all sorts.
Delilah Deb
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