Peter: Hey everybody, I'm Peter from Shoetopia.
Laura: and I'm Laura from Align Pedorthics.
Peter: And it's another version of Feel Good Feet. We had a viewer recently ask us a question about bunions, so we wanted to cover it.
Laura: We're going to talk about what bunions are, how they develop, what kind of shoes you can wear, some of the other stuff that you can do and how we can reduce that pain.
We'll start it with what a bunion is. If you look at your big toe a bunion actually is where bone starts to develop on the on the inside of your big toe on the inside of your body.
Over time that toe can actually start to turn in. It becomes very painful. You can start to lose some of that range of motion. It gets really inflamed and can actually start getting bigger and bigger.
On the other side of your foot, a bunionette can actually develop. It's called a Tailor's Bunion, actually. It's the same thing on the outside of your baby toe. That bone starts to develop and that toe can start to creep over this way as well.
Peter: Some people ask, did I inherit this because my mom had bunions or my dad had bunions? And other people will say, "Nobody in my family has bunions."
Well, part of it is heredity because ... if your parents had one and they have those foot issues, it's a possibility that you could have that. But part of it's also what you're wearing and how you're walking.
If you're wearing shoes that crunch you in all the time, then it's going to cause those issues. Wearing pointed shoes, wearing high heels, sometimes wearing flats, if you don't have proper arch support and you pronate a bit, it can cause you those issues as well. Or, if you supinate a lot it can cause a bunionette to happen.
Laura: A couple of things that we can do to address the bunion and get you some relief would be starting with what we call a toe spacer. This is just a silicone piece that sits right in between the toes. The idea behind it is that it's actually pushing to separate that big toe from your baby toe so it reduces any chances of corns or rubbing and actually can start to straighten it out.
Second option would be what we call a bunion booty. This long piece goes around your big toe, sits around the back of your heel and it actually is stitched in a way that it straightens your toe outwards so that we can limit how much of that pushing in that you're getting.
Peter: Yeah, great pieces and we see a lot of people wearing those in the store, coming in, and I think they're awesome.
The other thing we can do with footwear is that a lot of times we have stuff that really accommodates well. This is a Finn Comfort and it's got stretch panels in it. This is a very stretchy material through here and it also has the stretchy material on the outside. Essentially, you don't have to break them in. It's forming right away with the stretch materials. Instant comfort if you're dealing with those kinds of things.
We have some in slippers. We usually carry them in sandals too, that really have some bunion area stretch panels, and that really alleviates some of the problems and soreness that you can have. Once they're worked in they're worked in, but this kind of thing gives you immediate comfort.
Laura: And if you've tried all of those things and you're still not quite getting enough relief, we could actually look at doing an orthotic and that would adjust how you're walking. If you're pushing off to hard off of the inside of your big toe, that can exaggerate things, and then we can go from there.
Peter: Right on. Well, hopefully you've learned a little bit about bunions and bunionettes and how they happen and what you can do for them. That's what we're trying to do here at Feel Good Feet.
If you have any questions, please reach out to us and we'll cover them in a future episode. For now, I'm Peter from Shoetopia. You can find us at shoetopia.ca and on Facebook or on Instagram.
Laura:And I'm Laura and you can find me at alignpedorthics.com.
Peter:Right on. Have a great day. Bye for now.
Laura:Bye.