The first 3D scan of a female foot in high heels has highlighted the painful price fashion-conscious women may pay for tottering around in towering Christian Louboutins or Jimmy Choos. For related articles go to High Heels (1) and High Heels (2).
Consultant orthopaedic surgeon Andy Goldberg says all the body weight gets forced on to the front of the feet, eventually causing unsightly clawed toes that can become arthritic.
Wearing stilettos pushes and twists bones out of line, resulting in knobbly bunions and other painful conditions.
The picture above was taken with a new £200,000 scanner at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital in Stanmore, North London. The PedCAT machine, the first of its kind in the UK, does a 360-degree scan of the patient’s feet in just 60 seconds.
‘It shows the deformity caused by wearing high heels is much more complicated than we previously thought.
‘With high heels, the toes are squashed inside the shoe. The more stiletto-shaped they are, the worse it is. The toes not only get squashed, but they become clawed too.’
The base of the big toe becomes ‘deviated outwards’, forming a bunion, while the scanner also shows how these bones can become ‘rotated and dropped’.
Pea-shaped bones under the base of the big toe – called sesamoids – get dislodged by the immense pressures put on them.
Mr Goldberg added: ‘There’s nothing wrong with being in this high heel position temporarily – it forms a part of your normal stride. And if you wear heels for an hour or two at an evening party, it’s not a problem.
‘But if you wear them for eight hours a day for years on end, you will develop problems.’
A survey of patients at the hospital’s foot and ankle clinic found that 57% had experienced severe pain as a result of wearing uncomfortable shoes such as high heels.
Source Link: Killer Heels
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