In my practice I see a lot of flat feet. In fact sometimes I feel that I should dedicate my medical career to educating people about flat-feet. Often people that suffer from problems caused by flat feet don’t realize that in most cases the pain can be relieved with a good arch support. As a family physician I see a lot of patients with diseases they will have for the rest of their lives (high blood pressure, diabetes, etc). Therefore I enjoy it when patients come in with pain associated with flat-feet. Foot pain from flat feet is one of the few conditions I can actually fix and best of all it doesn’t require a medication to fix it.

The condidtion of flat feet is known in medical terms as over-pronation or hyperpronation. Pronation is the motion of flattening out of the arch as the foot externally rotates (rotates toward the floor). Pronation is necessary because it allows the foot to act as a shock aborber. In addition, pronation enables all the bones of the mid-foot to unlock and move freely. This enables the foot to adapt to a variety of surfaces (the beach,golf course,pavement etc). To a degree, pronation is necessary. Over-pronation (hyperpronation) is not a good thing.

The problem with flat feet or hyperpronation is that the foot remains pronated. The foot does not supinate (soup-in-ate) as the foot moves into the later stages of the step. Pronation is the opposite of supination. In supination the foot rotates up from the floor (internally rotates). Supination re-locks the bones of the mid-foot and turns the foot into a firm lever arm to provide an efficient force to move the body forward. If the foot remains pronated and cannot supinate it remains like a loose “bag of bones" and you are unable to use the foot as firm, efficient lever arm for propelling you forward.

causes inflammation and pain where the anterior muscles attach to the shin bone.

Hyperpronation can cause pain in the heel that is known as plantar fasciitis. The typical symptom of plantar fasciitis is severe heel pain when taking the first few steps in the morning or during the first few steps after resting for awhile. Over-pronation causes excessiveflattening of the arch. This causes the ligament called the plantar fascia on the bottom of the foot to stretch out too much. This causes inflammation where the plantar fascia inserts into the heel.

People with flat feet have very inefficient foot function and this can lead to heel pain, shin splints and muscle fatigue. By wearing an arch support, the foot is prevented from over-pronating and this improves the over-all efficiency of the foot function. Sometimes people buy an arch support off-the-shelf that provides support. Unfortunately, in most cases, the off-the-shelf insoles only provide cushioning and do not correct the hyper-pronation. Life is too short to suffer in pain, especially when the problem can be easily corrected. If you are having pain as the result of flat-feet it makes sense to spend the extra money to purchase an arch support that will correct the problem once and for all.

For Move Information Flat Feet Please View Video On "The Trouble With Flat Feet"

http://www.footpainresearch.com/11/why-flat-feet-cause-foot-pain-video-part-2-flat-foot-motion/