How Custom Orthotics Can Alleviate Chronic Back Pain

Your body functions as a unit, so dysfunction in one area can have a domino effect. Your feet are the foundation for your musculoskeletal system. Any deficiencies in your feet affect your entire skeleton, including your lower back.

Your feet provide the only point of contact with the ground, so each time you step, stand, run, or hop, you cause reverberations in the kinetic chain. Custom orthotics can make sure that the action of your feet promote good posture and proper gait so the muscles, connective tissue, and nerves that surround your spine stay healthy.

At Rocky Mountain Foot & Ankle Center, we can help improve your foot function to reduce chronic back pain -- or even alleviate it. Custom-made orthotics are an important part of the pain relief process.

About orthotics

Orthotics are inserts placed in your shoes, but encompass all devices such as foot pads, cushioning inserts, arch supports, and braces. Orthotics can help relieve foot and ankle dysfunction, such as Achilles tendon pain, bunions, plantar fasciitis, heel spurs, and toe inflammation.

But orthotics can also affect issues that radiate beyond your feet. Functional orthotics customized to your feet can correct biomechanical issues by redistributing your weight and affecting your motions to improve your gait and stability.

The role of your feet in back pain

When you have normal arches -- meaning they aren’t too flat or too high -- you can draw an imaginary line down the shin bone to the foot that passes between your big toe and second toe. But if you have dysfunctional arches, your feet may roll inward, causing a cascade of body adjustments in your hips, legs, knees, and pelvis that can contribute to back pain.

How orthotics help

Custom orthotics can correct foot pronation, excessive rolling in of the foot, to stabilize your foot position. This, in turn, improves your gait and posture. You are less likely to stand in a knock-kneed stance. Your hips return to a more normal angle, which helps stabilize the pelvis, and improve your posture. With proper foot support, you may have less pronounced inward curving of the lumbar spine, a position that contributes to low back pain.

Why you need custom orthotics

You can pick up a pair of generic orthotics at your local drugstore. But these one-size-fits-all options aren’t necessarily going to help your specific foot dysfunction. In some cases, over-the-counter orthotics can even worsen your back pain. Invest in effective customized orthotics designed by our team of doctors.

Custom orthotics address all foot factors contributing to your back pain, including structural deficiencies, compromised range of motion, laxity in connective tissue, and limb length discrepancies. Orthotics are only successful in helping back pain if they address all of these imperfections.

When you feel pain in your back, consider that the cause may be structural and traced all the way down to your foundation -- your feet. At Rocky Mountain Foot & Ankle Center, we help stabilize this foundation to reduce or erase low back pain. Call the office or book a consultation using this website to find out if custom orthotics are the answer to your chronic back pain.