Trendy hard floors could be to blame for your foot pain (and there is a simple way to stop it)

Sarah-Jane Lewis and her partner Ian were thrilled when they moved into their spacious new home, complete with polished oak floors.

But a week after they got the keys, in April last year, they both mysteriously started experiencing throbbing pains in the arches of the feet and knees.

It took Sarah-Jane, 40, who helps people sell their own products online, and Ian, 47, a project manager, many weeks to realize the source of their pain: their new wood floor.

“The soles of our feet felt really tight, like we’d walked for miles,” recalls Sarah-Jane. “So I posted on Facebook asking if anyone could help, and one of my friends, who is a chiropractor, said it was from walking barefoot on the hard floors.

“It never occurred to me that our floors could be to blame.”

The couple, whose new home is near Portsmouth, started wearing fur-lined shoes indoors – and within days the pain started to subside.

“Now I don’t get foot pain unless I forget to wear my shoes in the house,” says Sarah-Jane.

According to the Home Builders Federation, demand for hard flooring has exploded in recent years, with homeowners choosing wood, tile and natural flagstone over carpet.

But experts say our feet bear the brunt of this change.

The irony is that some people prefer hard floors over carpets for health reasons, to reduce the risk of allergies, as carpets can harbor dust mites that trigger reactions in some.

However, hard floor surfaces can exacerbate a variety of common foot problems, including flat feet; fallen arches (when the foot presses flat on the ground, usually due to degeneration of a major tendon called the tibialis posterior in the ankle); plantar fasciitis (inflammation of the band of tissue under the foot); and metatarsalgia (pain under the front of the foot caused by other problems such as bunions).

With flat feet, walking barefoot on hard floors causes pain due to lack of arch support; while for both metatarsalgia and plantar fasciitis, this can put additional pressure on the specific part of the foot that is already painful.

Meanwhile, people with diabetic neuropathy (in which nerve endings are damaged by poorly controlled blood sugar levels, leading to a loss of sensation) can hurt themselves without realizing it by walking barefoot on hard floors that may have ridges or cracks.

But for others, like Sarah-Jane, who has no known foot problems and whose previous home was fully carpeted, walking on hard floors can cause problems simply because their feet aren’t used to the lack of support that normal soft floors provide. offer. carpets.

Helen Branthwaite, a consultant podiatrist and musculoskeletal chief for the Royal College of Podiatry, says this is true for many Britons because we grew up with more carpets in our homes, in large part.

“It’s about conditioning,” she explains. ‘In Spain, where almost all surfaces are tiled, you don’t see a higher incidence of foot complaints because the people who live there are used to it and have developed stronger muscles in their arches.

“While we are used to wearing structured footwear outside in this country, we often err in assuming that we can walk barefoot on hard floors without getting our feet used to it first.

“The most important thing is the dramatic change,” adds Helen Branthwaite, who is also a senior lecturer in clinical biomechanics at Staffordshire University.

Carpet is soft and textured and provides feet with the same support as footwear; each step on carpet distributes the load slightly differently, giving our feet more freedom of movement.

However, a hard floor concentrates the load on certain areas of the foot, and the greater amount of impact forces passing through our feet causes the muscles to work harder than carpet, with a reduced range of motion, leading to a repetitive tension effect, explains Helen . Brantwaite.

Shoes act like a splint, she adds: “Wearing a stiffer shoe with arch support provides a mechanical advantage for people with flat feet because the shoes do the work and relieve the muscles.”

But without the support of shoes or carpets, the arches can sag because the muscles are too weak to support them on their own.

Evolution also plays a role. People have walked on concrete floors for a relatively short time compared to grass, which, like carpet, is soft and textured.

‘For some people, the structure of their body means they function better on softer surfaces,’ adds Helen Branthwaite.

The situation has been exacerbated by the Covid pandemic as more people are working from home – often spending their days barefoot, reports Matthew Welck, an orthopedic foot and ankle surgeon at the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital in London.

This was the case for Janet Lurie, a receptionist from London. Janet, who is in her 50s, was diagnosed with plantar fasciitis about 15 years ago and was advised to wear orthotics in her outdoor shoes, which helped immensely.

But during the hot summer of 2020, Janet spent a lot of time at home, barefoot in her tiled kitchen and conservatory.

“Then about a month into lockdown, I started having severe foot pain,” she says. “In fact, it got so bad I could barely move — I could barely put my foot on the floor because it felt like someone was stabbing my heel.

“It hurt incredibly.”

Janet Lurie also has Morton’s neuroma, which occurs due to irritation of the tissue around a nerve in your foot, usually between the third and fourth toes, often due to other problems affecting the front part of the foot, such as bunions. It can feel like a stabbing pain, or like a rock is stuck under your foot.

Janet sought help from a private podiatry clinic, Feet For Life, where she had orthotics made, with arch supports, to put into slippers and wear at home.

The pain decreased after two weeks of wearing the orthoses and disappeared after four weeks.

“Now I make sure not to go barefoot at home because I know it will cause pain,” she says.

Supportive insoles also provided a solution for 37-year-old Amanda Duddridge, a teaching assistant and mother of two from Pontypridd, Wales, who, shortly after replacing some of her carpets with wooden floors and tiles in 2018, had to overcome her dust allergy. nine-year-old daughter Esme.

The podiatrist she went to for help said it was caused by her flat feet, standing on hard floors at work, and walking barefoot on her new hard floors at home.

The podiatrist made her a pair of insoles that she has worn at home in slippers and in her outdoor shoes since her diagnosis.

“Today I am no longer in pain,” says Amanda. “But if people have problems with their feet, I would say they should think carefully about the floors they choose.”

For those transitioning to hard floors, Helen Branthwaite recommends an acclimatization period before going barefoot, gradually reducing the amount of foot support over six to eight weeks.

Simple exercises to increase the foot’s range of motion, such as getting up and down on your toes, can also help.

Mr Welck says people with foot problems should try to wear supportive shoes or insoles in shoes at home, ‘particularly if they have hard floors’.

So should we be concerned about growing children walking on hard floors at home?

On the contrary, says Helen Branthwaite. She advises that keeping children out of shoes as much as possible allows their feet to grow in a more challenging environment, which helps them grow stronger.

In addition, since children’s arches usually form around the age of six, using unnecessary arch support while they are still young and developing can adversely affect the biomechanics of their feet, knees and hips, explains Mr. Welck, who also works at Princess Grace Hospital in London.

“Most people with normal feet won’t be bothered by walking on hard floors,” he says, “but it’s important to protect yourself if you have problems with your feet, as this can make your symptoms worse.”