Skecher footwear is all the craze in the UK. Skechers dominate the high street. This fashionable brand with it’s air cooled memory foam feels so comfortable when you first put it on. The lovely spongey foam gives a sensory feedback of relief and bliss from walking in a hard soled shoe or on hard pavements, but beware it has it’s perils. Skecher shoes can damage feet.
Think of a memory foam mattress which slowly takes on your shape. Its ability to rebound back after a time is lost. This is what happens with Skecher shoes. If the wearer has a particular foot deformity or gait issue it will mould to the stresses that problem impresses on it. This lack of springing back into shape with loss of support and control could potentially exacerbate an issue causing the wearer increased foot pain and musculoskeletal problems.
As a podiatrist I am not totally against the Skecher type shoe as they can be very comfortable for painful arthritic type feet and individuals with no particular foot or lower limb problem, but they should be restricted to light casual wear only or even better as a comfort slipper replacement. Skechers are not suitable for heavy impact and prolonged standing. Being very flexible and spongey they do not stabilise ligaments, joints and muscles allowing strains and sprains to occur. Here is case of a Skecher not being fit for purpose:
Female patient, 40+, nurse, resumed running after a having a break for several years. Chose a Skecher trainer for it’s cushioning properties; “ Felt lovely on my feet and I could also wear them to work……I work 10 hour shifts”. Great in principle, but not for her. After wearing Skechers for a couple of months came in limping complaining of excruciating left forefoot pain and outside lateral dorsal (top of foot). Was unable to work.
On examination the plantar area (ball) of her let foot was hot, inflamed and painful to touch. Directly over the 2nd metatarsal phalangeal joint(MPJ) was a patch of tissue bruising. No hard skin was noted, all pain was radiating from deep tissue trauma. The second toe was fixed in a hammer deformity making the associated metatarsal joint pronounced.
Taking out the Skecher memory foam insole from her trainer revealed a deep broken down depressed area that correlated with the pronounced 2nd MPJ. The Skecher trainer was not suitable for her foot for running or prolonged standing and was exacerbating her left forefoot weakness. She had inadvertently developed a capsulitis( joint inflammation) of the 2nd MPJ and subcutaneous tissue damage and swelling. Biomechanically the left foot had a tendency to roll-in, pronate and she was not pushing-off correctly from the big toe, hence another reason the 2nd MPJ was stress overloaded. The reason she had developed lateral foot pain was compensatory to avoid walking properly on forefoot.
Conclusion – This patient required a firm and supportive trainer, one that controlled pronatory rolling-in and distributed footfoot weightbearing loads evenly across the metatarsal phalangeal joints. I could have put an orthotic in her Skecher, but they are not suitable to accommodate corrective insoles and could make problems worse. An orthotic has to work as a functional unit with a good shoe for optimal efficacy.
Treatment
My patient was advised to ditch her Skechers as they had taken on the patina of bad gait, invest in appropriate running trainers. I also issued a pair of cushioning orthotics with a metatarsal pad and cut a hole where ball of big toe dropped to off-load 2nd MPJ. The big toe needed to start doing more work. It was not working as a propulsive lever, so she had no spring in her gait and her Skechers were not doing that either! The orthotic gave her instant relief and stopped the limp.
