Seeking sensible shoes

My feet are not a pretty sight. I have a pronounced bunion (/bˈʌnɪən/) on the right and a littler one on the left. They sort of crept up on me when I noticed a kind of hump on adjacent toes. ”Oh, that’s a hammer toe,” said my friendly physician, who sent me off to an orthopaedic surgeon, who sent me off for X-rays and who eventually moulded my feet in plaster of Paris for custom orthotics that I have worn ever since.

With the X-rays, the foot doctor also diagnosed Morton’s neuroma on the right and injected corticosterone to relieve the pressure and pain. That, and the orthotics, seemed to do the trick and touch wood it hasn’t given me any more gyp aside from an occasional twinge.

I’m not at all sure how any of this came about. Genetics, probably. I did have a stretch wearing early versions of naked shoes, and I really liked them. My foot doctor seemed to think they were A Bad Thing, and the internets at the time were inconclusive, so I obeyed and wore the insoles. But in the back of my mind I also fretted that if the problem was weak arches, which it seemed to be, then shouldn’t I be strengthening them rather than supporting them?

The real problem with feet, it seems to me, is that things move so slowly. If your shoes are going to cause problems, there is usually no hint of it to begin with. You don’t even notice the gradual changes until one day something switches and pain manifests itself. The same goes for therapy. Doing exercises, like scrunching up a towel with my toes ten times a day, produced no sensible change. It didn’t even get easier over the course of two weeks. Orthotics or whatever relieved the pain, but did not actually reverse the process that resulted in damage. Still with the insoles and the injection, I tried to find more suitable shoes.

Wide-fitting shoes are not easy to find when so few shoes shops in Italy actually stock any different widths. For a while I liked New Balance sneakers bought online. They were good and comfy, but the most recent couple of pairs, which might have been cheap knock-offs, were very poorly made and did not wear well. One of my first purchases was a nice dress black pair from Julius Bär, which I like, and I subsequently extended that to two sneakerish pairs. But one of those is also showing what looks to me like excessive wear after only a year, and they’re not cheap.

I searched online for other sneakers with wide fittings and found one that actually revealed the maximum width for each size. Great, after wrapping a piece of string round my bunion, there seemed to be wiggle room. Alas, though there was no pressure on the bunion, the toe box was too narrow. It took me wearing them outdoors for a while to realise that I couldn’t rely on them, and of course now I can’t return them. At least they weren’t that expensive.

That’s the story to date. I’ve looked again at naked shoes, which will surely have a wide enough toe box, and enquired about width from one, but the answer wasn’t very inspiring. More about the wonderful returns policy rather than any information about the actual maximum width. A cyber-friend (whose recent post on shoes inspired this post, though not his level of dedication) had a good experience with them, which encourages me.

A few people have recommended specific brands. I’ll probably visit a shop soon, though I don’t expect them to have different widths in store so I’ll probably have to order online.

If you got this far, and have any suggestions, I’m all ears. And feet.