Skating with foot deformities?

[Mlxg 1]

Hey all,

So the past couple weeks I've been trying a pair of CCM's custom skates. In the process of "breaking them in" and eventually getting them remade, I learned my feet aren't as normal as they look to be lol. And it's kind of depressing knowing this might hold back my advancement in skating (more like I can't do certain things because they cause pain).

Any of you skating about with messed up feet, and how do you deal with them?

I have:

2 heavily protruding accessory naviculars (1 on each foot, left foot far worse than right). These cause localized pain in the boot of the skate and I have to get a pretty hefty punch.

Left arch is virtually nonexistent.

Smallish bunions, still more pronounced on right foot than left. Right hurts when I do hard backwards crossovers. Started wearing a gel pad which really helped.

Bauer bump on left heel (caused recently by a pair of wornout oversized Supreme skates + me doing a lot of backwards crossovers)

Bunionettes on the outside of the pinky toe joint, both feet. Don't really hurt.

Hammertoes. All of them. Don't really notice this.

Honestly considering surgery to remove as much of the protruding bones altogether at once at this point lol.

 

[Vet88 674]

On 4/29/2019 at 9:48 AM, Mlxg said:

Any of you skating about with messed up feet, and how do you deal with them?

I have for all my life and never used to query it. Taped up my toes, covered bunions etc with gel patches, forsberg pads for lace bite, booties or bunga heel pads for heel bumps etc etc. But why, others I knew just pulled on skates and skated with no pain, why me? Simple answer is body alignment. It's how your foot / ankle / knee / hip aligns over the top of the skate blade. If this alignment isn't correct your foot will pronate / supinate as you skate causing the foot to rotate in the boot. Sore pinkies, sore big toes, sore areas both sides of the forefoot just behind the toes, heel bumps, sore inner ankles, etc etc. Anything sound familiar? There is only one fix I found, you have to learn to skate with your laces untied. Nothing else works for long term success. Once you learn to balance properly over the blade all the painful spots in your feet will disappear (you still have to punch for those lumps). Otherwise tape and pad up.

And getting that heel bump removed is a major as they generally have to cut 1/2 your achillies off to get at it. I've had one done because I also had nerve damage over the top of the bump but since I learnt to skate lace free I won't get the other side done now.

[Mlxg 1]

9 minutes ago, Vet88 said:

I have for all my life and never used to query it. Taped up my toes, covered bunions etc with gel patches, forsberg pads for lace bite, booties or bunga heel pads for heel bumps etc etc. But why, others I knew just pulled on skates and skated with no pain, why me? Simple answer is body alignment. It's how your foot / ankle / knee / hip aligns over the top of the skate blade. If this alignment isn't correct your foot will pronate / supinate as you skate causing the foot to rotate in the boot. Sore pinkies, sore big toes, sore areas both sides of the forefoot just behind the toes, heel bumps, sore inner ankles, etc etc. Anything sound familiar? There is only one fix I found, you have to learn to skate with your laces untied. Nothing else works for long term success. Once you learn to balance properly over the blade all the painful spots in your feet will disappear (you still have to punch for those lumps). Otherwise tape and pad up.

And getting that heel bump removed is a major as they generally have to cut 1/2 your achillies off to get at it. I've had one done because I also had nerve damage over the top of the bump but since I learnt to skate lace free I won't get the other side done now.

Hey Vet88,

My alignment I'm pretty sure is not that great (can't really self-assess it, but I skate alright without shims or orthotics or whatnot) but I didn't have too much pain or soreness from my previous skates aside from direct bone pain from my left Bauer bump hitting the skate boot. I guess I'm still young enough that it hasn't caused soreness. 

 

However, after reading one of your other posts, I have begun skating unlaced(or progressing towards it) starting with skipping 4-5 eyelets. I actually started because the side of my skate was digging into my ankle too much one day (I messed up the heatmold and overtightened the top eyelet) but now I've done this three times so far in public skates (about 4 hours total) and will do so in a stick and puck next as I am now fully comfortable turning and stopping and even hard accelerating with this setup. Aside from teaching me how to balance better and working on my ankle strength (first two times, my ankles were SORE afterward), it's actually really fun 😛 and a nice challenge.

 

Granted, I have fairly stiff and molded AS1s that provide quite a bit of support even unlaced so I may have to progress with further unlacings until I have no laces, but these skates as they are, without top 4-5 eyelets give me enough confidence doing harder turns and stops without breaking my ankles, while still feeling like I'm actually working to stay on the right edges of my blade. 

 

Thanks for that advice; I think I'll keep doing it. 

Edited May 1, 2019 by Mlxg

[Stooch 1]

I've been mentioning in other threads here, but I have had foot problems off and on, mostly outside of hockey (in my case, walking can be painful after about 30 mins of walking, but skating is generally pain free). After suffering off and on for a while, and then going over a year with pretty serious pain in my Achilles, I went to the doctor. They sent me for x-rays and ultrasound for my right foot (which was worse.. I should have gotten the left checked too though) and they said I have calcification in my foot, a bone spur, and a tear in my Achilles (from rubbing on the spur). 

They tried a steroid injection at first. That reduced pain temporarily, but didn't fix anything, per se. My doctor had suggested ESWT (Extracorporeal Shock Wave Therapy). I think I've gone about 6 times now. The pain throughout my foot has improved, especially in my left (they are doing both). My right heel still gets pain in it, and I'm thinking the tear is still there though. I wish I took pictures of my bone spur from before, but I think it has gotten smaller. 

I'm not really sure what the diff is between Haglund's deformity and a bone spur is.. perhaps location on the heel? But I wonder if ESWT works for that as well. I can say it hurts like hell. My doctor told me the steroid injection was painful and I am pretty sure he made it sound like ESWT was a walk in the park, but it was the complete opposite for me. When they hit my Achilles area with that machine.. hoo boy. I feel like this is working, and I've ordered some Bunga pads to try and prevent bringing the problem back again. I'll update here somewhere with how the ESWT goes. Hopefully it eventually fixes my issue. 

Edited May 3, 2019 by Stooch