One foot is flat other is not, what to do?

Hey, cool, nice to meet someone mostly in the same boat. My right foot is also totally flat and my left foot is arched too, although it sounds like maybe your left foot is more arched than mine if you developed a stress fracture on that side. My solution when I developed an extremely painful right knee was to get custom orthotics (both feet). What did your podiatrist prescribe for you, anything besides a stability shoe? That or a motion-control shoe is appropriate for most overpronating flat feet, but a more highly-arched foot needs more cushioning, not more rigidity.

Be careful in adjusting just one side, because you don't want to make your left leg functionally longer by adding arch supprt to that side only. If your right foot is what's known as flexibly flat, meaning it looks like it has an arch at rest which disappears flat when you stand and put weight on it, both of your orhotics will conform to each arch at rest, because that's how each is individually casted. Then, with the appropriate support or cant under each foot in the form of a custom orthotic, you can probably get a pair of more neutral shoes, since each orthotic adjusts each foot as needed.

I've always heard exercises won't make much difference in building up our flat right arch (and I did give it my full effort when my right foot became flat), but I've seen a lot of runners' blogs lately where they claim to have built up their arch(es) by using Vibram Five Fingers or even running barefoot. Any flatfoot runners here with that experiece? It sounds too good to be true, but I'd be willing to give it a try if there's proof of this, like before and after photos of an arch where none existed before, or even a low arch turning into a visibly higher, strong arch?

Hey,

Even though this is a dead thread, I also have this problem. However, my feet are the reverse of yours where my right foot has the arch while my left foot is flat. I believe that my experience is strange though, since before I started running, I was a swimmer with two flat feet. I think my issue had something to do with the fact that my coach made the team run many, many intervals on a track, and the counter clockwise running made me put a larger amount of stress on my right foot. In addition, my build is fairly stocky, weighing 170 lbs at 5'7", and I have small feet (size nine). My solution was fairly simple: run clockwise. It has been a year since I started running clockwise (although this made practices very awkward since I run in the opposite direction of my teammates), and from a scan, a small arch of 1.73cm^2 has developed and the pain that I experienced in my left foot after practices has begun to lessen noticeably.

If you had a similar experience that I have, maybe balancing your workout by alternating stressing each foot to adapt may help you.

I'm too poor to go see a real podiatrist though, so this is all conjecture.

Hope this helps!

I like the orthofeet spring shoes as they help at least a bit with the neuroma in my right foot. I miss the Velcro version of your black shoes and your white shoes though. I liked them better than shoelace ones, although the shoelaces ones are still good. I am trying a different shoe this time, a running shoe type. I am interested to see whether they are worth the extra money.

Run on one foot only, obviously.

Run barefoot on grass or sand and do some running drills on some grass or sand.