r/flatfeet

I'm reaching out because hopefully someone can give me some answers to my son.

He has foot pain on the bottom of his feet. It comes and goes and he has been experiencing it for at least 4 years.

Up until last month, this is how it used to go:

About 20 times a year he would experience the pain and 90% of the time it would be at night. I tracked it to try and find any correlation. I tracked what he ate to see if it were some sort of food allergy that caused it. No correlation. I tracked it to activities, and not really any correlation. The pain would either start in the early evening, or in the middle of the night. Sometimes it would be bad enough that he was crying and we gave him medicine and it went away. Sometimes it was the left foot, sometimes the right, sometimes both. We thought it might have to do with his activities like running, but we also noticed the pain would sometimes occur during the day when he had some other illness. So he would be in bed all day because he was sick, and also experience the pain in his feet.

My son plays baseball and we noticed sometimes after playing baseball he would have the pain. We thought maybe it was the running. However, he then started playing basketball and he had practice/games 3-4 times a week with much more running and jumping than he did with baseball. Not really any foot pain during basketball season.

We've been to his doctor over and over. We've had xrays, blood work, and now an MRI on one foot. Nothing is showing up. We saw a podiatrist 2 years ago and he didn't have any explanation examining the foot. We will now see another podiatrist because we just finished the MRI so we need to find out what to do next.

Starting last month the foot pain has been much worse and it is now lasting for multiple days straight. Before, it used to only occur at night and the medicine would help and he would be fine in the morning. As of today he has had constant pain for the past 6 days. Several of those days I had him basically off his feet for nearly the entire day. The pain will get reduced, to barely anything, but then at night it will increase and stay increased over night.

He is playing baseball right now. He does wear cleats, but we've had him stop wearing the cleats and he still has the pain. He also does very little running in baseball for the past 2 weeks.

Our next step is to see a rheumatologist. However, we have to wait for a referral and I don't know how long that will take.

I'm desperate for advice for my son. Please let me know if you have any suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

Edit to add: The pain is mostly on the ball of his foot and less on the heel.

I am 20(F) and I’ve been treated for flat feet and severe over-pronation since I was 7. My mother noticed it when I first started walking so it was something that I was born with and I started seeing an orthotic specialist when I was 7 and have been consistently wearing custom orthotic insoles in all my shoes since.

It has definitely helped to prevent some deformities such as bunions and hammer toe and my toes curl much less inward towards my feet than they used to but I’ve been dealing with pain constantly that I thought was normal for as long as I can remember and I’ve found it’s become progressively worse and worse since I was about 14.

In terms of my feet they are completely flat when I stand and my whole foot rolls inwards with my ankles doing the same and both heels seem to be significantly everted to compensate. I believe my flat feet are also flexible flat feet. My knees sit slightly inwards also and I haven’t been able to ever stand properly if they aren’t like that.

I’ve been struggling a lot with feet, ankle, knee, hip and back pain for years, especially if I’m working and on my feet for 4 hour long shifts. Everyone always says to me that I’ll just get used to it but I never do, it’s definitely not as bad as when I first started my job but it’s still horrible and the pain makes me feel nauseous and exhausted. I often have to rely on knee and ankle supports when working lest I wish to hobble home after work because I can’t bear the weight or pain any longer.

I saw my GO today and I’ve been referred back to the orthotic specialist at my local hospital as I aged out of the paediatric care and have also been referred for an MSK assessment.

My question is though, what will things look like long-term and how are other people getting on? Is there anything in particular I need to look out for or consider and what medical avenues worked best for other people?

I can't do surgery since my mom said no (since I was struggling to be consistent with PT), I also had 17 surgeries unrelated so I would prefer not another. A shoe store for custom orthotics said I had abnormally very heavy pressure on the balls of my feet plus over pronation. The foot surgeon said my calf muscles were slightly short but nothing big.

I am confused why I get pain everyday (besides heavy pressure which clearly can't be fixed) if I stand more than 10 min. Especially in any shoes I worn (done my shoe size, a size up and down, tried barefeet, etc).

Is a foot massager the next thing to try?

I want to get a job but have quit over 4 in the past two years because of this foot pain and I just am so done with it. How do I get over this? The shifts were like 2 to 4 hour shifts and that was too much to handle.