I was pondering topics for my first blog article, sorting through the many treatments available today for various conditions causing pain, creating deformities, and even crippling patients. Originally, I wanted to discuss high impact treatments such as lasers, minimally invasive surgery (M.I.S.), advances in diabetic wound healing, and other dramatic treatment modalities. My attention kept returning to the treatment that helps more conditions than any other, alleviates more pain, protects joints against damage, improves posture & breathing, improves athletic performance, and is more cost-effective that almost any other way of treating these conditions. That treatment is custom orthotics or foot supports.

There are no other modalities that can produce the gratifying results and keep people out of pain and surgery more than custom orthotics. Their cost is low by comparison with other treatments and they are totally safe with almost no contraindications for their use. The cost is about ? the cost of getting a crown on a tooth or less.

The indications for orthotics are to treat foot imbalances and their attendant problems. This foot imbalance is hereditary. When the foot is imbalanced, one can get heel pain, bunions, hammertoes, neuromas, bunionettes, heel bumps, bursitis, callouses, corns, sprained ankles, shin splints, knee pain, hip pain and abnormal wear and tear on the hip joint, low-back pain , pain in the neck and shoulders, and even headaches.

Other indications are a family propensity for developing foot, ankle, and postural problems. It is appropriate for orthotics to be prescribed in order to prevent their development,.

Orthotics must be custom-made to be effective and your feet should have molds made from plaster-of-paris or fiberglass with the molds taken off weight bearing while the foot is held in the corrected position.

Range of Motion measurements are very important as well. Your doctor should be using these methods as well as gait analysis (watching you walk). If your molds are made by having you step in foam or standing on a machine, you are not getting a proper biomechanical evaluation and the orthotics you receive will not be ideal.

Drug store and internet "orthotics" can be worthwhile as temporary treatment, but may even worsen pain. Orthotics should be comfortable from when you first put them on. They do not need to be "broken in".

Consider orthotics as a treatment for a myriad of foot, ankle, and postural problems. If they are made and prescribed properly, you will get more than your money's worth. Good orthotics should last 3-6 years unless one is a distance runner or other high mileage athlete.