Abnormal Feet Go Shoe Shopping

It's true. People with foot issues have to buy shoes. And it's not pretty either. I have low arches which causes me to over-pronate (I have a very flexible arch.)

It's actually not freakish to over-pronate; a decent percentage of the population have feet like this. It's just that the shoe manufacturers cater to people who have normal arches (which is over 50% of people). If you want to find out if you have a normal arch - get your feet wet and step onto a dark towel or paper bag (or cement). If the wet print has a dry spot where your arch is (the center inside of foot), you have normal arches.



If the print is totally flat, you have a low arch and tend to over-pronate.



If you have a huge dry spot where the arch is, you have a very high arch and under-pronate (roll feet outwards). It's important to know this stuff when buying shoes so you wind up with a good fit.




Listen to me.....like I knew any of this more than a year ago.

So back to me and my shoe shopping. I was getting a bit stressed out thinking I'd be walking for 14 hours at Disney with my current athletic shoes (shoes that got demoted to gardening duty earlier this summer because they're OK for short periods of time, but not comfy for long-term wear.) In mid-September I started hitting the stores in search of comfortable shoes. Normal people do this all the time without much effort. Maybe you have to go to a few stores, but eventually you find a pair, bring them home and wear them. Story over.

Of course it can't be that way with me. My feet aren't "normal" feet, as I've already established, and they need shoes that offer a little bit of support in the right areas. Combine that with the fact that most manufacturers of shoes cater to those folks who have an average or normal arch, and shoe shopping gets complicated for the rest of us. Shoes for normal arches are uncomfortable for me - either they don't have enough arch support, or there's too much.

I've tried on dozens and dozens of shoes at I don't even know how many stores. At one point, Mike was convinced the store thought I was planning on ripping them off. Of course, he hits one store and finds what he wants, buys them, and will pack them up for vacation without any breaking in period and they'll be perfect for him. Forgive me, but I hate his feet right now because on two occasions I thought I'd found the right pair, brought them home to wear around the house to "make sure" they were the right ones, only to have issues with one foot or the other (so on top of my low arch situation, they're not the same "low", I guess.) So back to the stores they went.

Monday night my search came to an end. I found a comfortable pair of shoes, and I'm so relieved! Finally, a pair of shoes that both of my feet can agree on! Woohoo! The winner is a pair of Privo Tequini's which came in black, brown and white. I sort of wanted the brown, but I settled for white because they look more like athletic shoes and won't look dorky when I wear them with shorts while on vacation. They're sort of cute in a way. Kinda.....earthy. But my feet don't care....they both like very much.