Painful feet advice

Johntin, if the ski boot fitter does not get you to try on the insole first, then the empty shell, then the boot as a whole i'd be asking questions!

The best advice is not to be swayed by clever boot fitters. What you really need is a store with a big enough range of boots. 90% of people who have lots of work done on boots are having it done purely because they're in the wrong boot to start with. There's a huge range of boots on the market with a range of sizing and fitting. It makes far more financial sense as a boot fitter to carry a limited range of boots that are easy to work and do modifications for the wearer than to carry a wide range of boots.

As a rule of thumb, or should that be toe :-) , if you're able to walk a few km in a fairly ordinary pair of shoes without pain or discomfort then there's absolutely nothing wrong with your feet no matter what anyone says. Even then for most people a pair of foot beds should be about all that's required 99.99% of the time.

Taking advice on computers from a guy on PC World is something we'd laugh about, or hi-fi or camera advice from the young lad in Dixons, so you have to ask yourself how much you trust some guy who basically works in a shop in the local shopping centre.

The only combination that works as a consumer is a reasonable fitter and great range of product, a money back guarantee doesn't hurt either.

It's also worth bearing in mind there's precious little (genuine) innovation in ski boots and one pair's pretty much the same as another.

Ise has summed this up well, I think.

With the range of product available these days, boots should not hurt at all. If they do, you have probably bought the wrong pair.

Try the linerless shell first. There should be enough room to put your finger down the back of it between your boot and the heel space.

Put the liner in and put the boot on and stamp your foot into it. Your toes should touch the end. Don't worry, this is good and doesn't mean the boot is too small.

Now do the boot up loosely and include any booster srap that may be featured.

You should feel your foot pulled back towards the heel and your heel go into the "pocket."

Leave the boots on for a few minutes and see how they feel. If they hurt they are wrong. If they start to feel very slightly uncomfortable and heavy after at first feeling very good, you have quite possibly got the right boot for you.

TAKE YOUR TIME AND POINT OUT ANY CONCERNS YOU MAY HAVE TO THE FITTER.

Try something else for comparison. Atomic, Salomon, Nordica, Lange etc all make great boots, but the profiles are all slightly different.

Remember, you should only have to adjust the clips slightly during the day and should never overtighten them. This simply pulls the shell out of shape and negates the qualities of that boot.

In my experience if a fitter needs to take a scalpel to the shell its as a last resort to salvage a misinformed purchase.

Wear quality socks, with padded areas for comfort and lycra areas to increase blood flow and keep your feet from aching.

It isn't unusual to spend a couple of hours or more having boots fitted. It has to be right, thats the bottom line.

When you think you've got the right pair and come to use them for the first time, only do them up loosely for the first runs of the day. Then gradually do them up making a mental note of whats the most precise and comfortable setting. Micro adjustments are useful if you have them. I always undo the clips on top of the boots (bottom 2) after each run to give my feet a rest.

Happy skiing!

Update.
frustrated if I am honest.
I went to a podiatrist who did higlight problems with my feet,they took moulds to make orthapiadic footbeds, which take four weeks to complete I was told these would go into ski boots.
I traveled quite a few miles to a boot fitters in Castleford but they where very busy, two hours later I gave up waiting so on limited time went to another establishment,I explained my problems, I tried on two pairs of boots, and ended up with a pair of Rossignol Bandits which where comfortable, the boot fitting was not in depth as the last e-mail threads suggest the lining was not took out so my foot could be measured in the shell. Anyway wore them in at home for twenty minutes etc for a period of time.
Meanwhile my orthopaedic footbeds arrived which I now wear in all my footwear. The podiatrist with a struggle managed to get them into my ski boots and a struggle to get them out.
last week I had a chance to try my boots out with my footbeds fitted, at the Xscape ski slope, Yup guess what, my feet where bloody agony, little toes on both feet went numb, cramp under little toe area this happened after about twenty minutes, agony. I am so disapointed, my family and friends had a great time in their hired boots.
Went to Ellis B in centre the boot fitter there advised me my orthopaedic footbeds where not suitable for ski boots and seemed very knowledgeable and advised custom footbeds, (saying boots where ok doing measurements with lining out etc took his time) so he made me my footbeds, moulded heated etc took over an hour. So Im now bedding these in at home, and sometime soon I hope to go back to xscape and see what happens or feel what happens.
So thats my sorry tale so far, any observations would be helpful, dont be to harsh.

johntin wrote:Update.
frustrated if I am honest.
I went to a podiatrist who did higlight problems with my feet,they took moulds to make orthapiadic footbeds, which take four weeks to complete I was told these would go into ski boots.

That doesn't sound good, it shouldn't take four weeks. I know you're talking about something more than the custom footbeds knocked out in the conformable ovens but even so, mine take a few days depending how busy the guy is. Particularly since they're 90% computer milled which suggests your guys aren't equipped properly.

johntin wrote:I traveled quite a few miles to a boot fitters in Castleford but they where very busy, two hours later I gave up waiting so on limited time went to another establishment,I explained my problems, I tried on two pairs of boots, and ended up with a pair of Rossignol Bandits which where comfortable, the boot fitting was not in depth as the last e-mail threads suggest the lining was not took out so my foot could be measured in the shell. Anyway wore them in at home for twenty minutes etc for a period of time.
Meanwhile my orthopaedic footbeds arrived which I now wear in all my footwear. The podiatrist with a struggle managed to get them into my ski boots and a struggle to get them out.
last week I had a chance to try my boots out with my footbeds fitted, at the Xscape ski slope, Yup guess what, my feet where bloody agony, little toes on both feet went numb, cramp under little toe area this happened after about twenty minutes, agony. I am so disapointed, my family and friends had a great time in their hired boots.
Went to Ellis B in centre the boot fitter there advised me my orthopaedic footbeds where not suitable for ski boots and seemed very knowledgeable and advised custom footbeds, (saying boots where ok doing measurements with lining out etc took his time) so he made me my footbeds, moulded heated etc took over an hour. So Im now bedding these in at home, and sometime soon I hope to go back to xscape and see what happens or feel what happens.
So thats my sorry tale so far, any observations would be helpful, dont be to harsh.

Hard to call that, it sounds like EB and podiatrist are both wrong to me. The podiatrist I use is a sports specialist having worked for a couple of ski teams at the Olympics so he's able to ensure the beds are right for skiing. The EB beds will be OK but they'll never offer the same support the ones from the podiatrist should have offered.

EB and others make some play of discarding the stock insoles with comments about them being for punters or whatever but in truth the conformables aren't so much better, they're good for regular feet, just like the factory ones were, but once you start needs stabilising blocks on them they're not so good. If nothing else they won't take much abuse and most importantly the fitters don't have access to the proper equipment to measure pressure loads over the foot, their compromise is to get you standing in them to form them while hot which is not quite the same thing.

Ise thanks for your reply,

Where I live, Whitby, N Yorks, nothing happens quickly, the moulds I had made for my orthopaedic footbeds had to be sent away to be fabricated, hence the wait.
Again where I live there is nowhere that I could get boots properly fitted within probably a fifty mile radius, as far as Im aware. Let alone specialist sport podiatrists.
I can imagine things getting quite expensive to sort my problem.
Whitby is a great place though.

johntin wrote:Ise thanks for your reply,

Where I live, Whitby, N Yorks, nothing happens quickly, the moulds I had made for my orthopaedic footbeds had to be sent away to be fabricated, hence the wait.

I thought you were going to say that, it's not unheard of. The best kit will take various images and measurements ("g-code") of the foot which can be hooked straight into CNC gear. What some outfits do is hold only measuring gear and send the data to another location that has the CNC kit, it's clearly cheaper. The trouble is that it's slower and can lack the hand finishing and local input you get from an integrated setup. The local guy here modifies the CNC "g-code" for me for some requirements I have based on my usage.

Ise
you have lost me, I just want my feet to stop hurting!