By Rehan Iqbal
For those with podiatry issues, life is a constant struggle to keep and maintain a comfortable pair of shoes. The ideal solution is to have a custom pair made specially by a podiatrist. However, this often requires a high enough quality insurance provider or a significant amount of cash - two things that most people don't have.
Plastic Shoes for Foot Health: Facts, Or a Load of Croc?
The average individual suffering from foot ailments is left to sample the endless selection of footwear that claims to provide a solution. Between many brands and designs that claim to provide relief and the even larger number of insole options, purchasing over-the-counter retail remedies for foot health can be equally as expensive.
Those with foot pain get lucky enough to encounter a wild card - footwear that's not even marketed for pain relief or care and provides substantial relief. Are Crocs one of these types of shoes? In this article, we explore if Crocs are suitable for your feet, especially if you are on your feet all day and if so, what conditions they potentially deliver the most relief for.
Are Crocs Good for Your Feet?
It doesn't seem like that long since Crocs were released - it only feels like just yesterday the craze was catching on, with consumers purchasing all the different colors of these plastic shoes to match their outfits and personality. You either love Crocs, or you don't - there is no in-between.
However, regardless of how fashionable or unfashionable they might be, many people are attracted to Crocs because they provide pain relief for their ailing feet. And while it's true, the shoes you wear play a huge role in the health of your feet, do Crocs really have that big of an impact on foot comfort?
Breaking Down the Crocs Design
From the beginning, Crocs were constructed with breathability and airy room for your feet to breathe. Loose fitting by design, these oversized slip-ons lack the upper portion of the heel and contain holes throughout for ultimate ventilation. But does ventilation equal comfort? After all, you could wear a dollar pair of flip-flops that give you all the breathability in the world, but that doesn't mean they'll feel good.
If you want to know the truth, Crocs were initially designed for the unfortunate victims of the pain of the plantar fascia. This giant ligament connects your heels to your toes and, when irritated, can bring excruciating pain. Crocs acted as a source of incredibly stable arch support while maintaining an efficient level of cushion in the insoles. Their design made them perfect for this particular condition.
This was the only type of pain relief in mind for the designers of Crocs shoes. However, by design, they ended up bringing relief to people with other foot complications.
Additional Relief You Can Expect from Crocs
Because of the additional wiggle room inside of a pair of Crocs, they have become the ideal shoes for those who have recently undergone foot surgery. In fact, it's not just a suggestion circulating in the foot pain community between patients - surgeons are now advising post-operative patients to don Crocs after their procedures.
Have you had issues with Hammertoe? Crocs could provide you with the relief you've been searching for. Hammertoe is a painful condition where one or multiple toes bend to one side, and the pain can be crippling. Because of the unnatural curve of the toes, they bunch inside regular shoes, making space an issue, and tight spaces are the worst possible scenario for this condition. Crocs have the additional space to bring comfort for Hammertoe, although it won't bring about a cure.
Diabetics who have issues with their feet have also turned to Crocs. The distance away from the heart, combined with the poor circulation caused by diabetes, often leads to sores on the feet that become infected. However, Crocs deliver comfort to avoid many of these injuries. Additional challenges addressed by Crocs include:
Current State of Crocs
The makers of Crocs have even released their Rx brand, marketed explicitly toward those with foot challenges - many of which are lined with antibacterial elements to prevent sores and infections.
Do Crocs cure every foot condition? No, they're not a cure-all. But for those with painful and nagging foot conditions, they can certainly provide the comfort to make the situation far more manageable.
