- Office 5, Level 1, 300 Point Cook Road, Point Cook, 3030
Orthotics are much more than just shoe inserts that add comfort and support to your feet. Every pair we prescribe is custom-designed by our podiatrists to help alleviate your specific foot pains and problems, reduce strain and pressure away from injured joints, bones, and tissues and optimise the way your feet and legs move with every step you take.
We do this using our extensive knowledge of the biomechanical functioning of the feet and legs, combined with the results of your comprehensive assessments that gives us a complete picture of how your lower limbs are currently functioning and where the weaknesses, abnormalities or deficiencies lie.
The result is a device that is inserted inside your shoe, replacing the shoe’s inner liner. Because orthotics are tailored to your condition, injury and daily activities, the length of time that the orthotics need to be worn will vary from person to person. Those that have sustained a lower limb injury may only need the orthotic until it has helped their injury completely heal. Others that want orthotics to improve their foot function and decrease fatigue during sports, can continue to wear their orthotics during sporting activities.
We take great pride in our orthotics here at Sole Motion and have seen them make a large difference in many of our patients’ lives, from young kids to athletes and the elderly.
While many well-meaning practitioners will jump at the opportunity to prescribe custom foot orthotics, we only prescribe ours for specific reasons where we know they can benefit you the most. This includes if you:
It’s important to us that you’re not just prescribed orthotics and left to navigate the rest of your recovery on your own. We stay with you every step of the way to make sure we’re seeing the results we both want, as well as working directly on your problem to stimulate and speed up the healing and repair process. That’s why there are always two important steps to effectively using orthotics and treating pains:
This means that you get orthotics that are prescribed and designed by a podiatrist that specialises in sports medicine and foot biomechanics. As the function of orthotics is determined by the prescribing Podiatrist, it’s important that this is their area of speciality and expertise. At Sole Motion Podiatry, sports medicine and effective rehabilitation of pains and injuries are our specialities. Our team sees these problems day in and day out, so we’ve adapted our techniques over the years to reflect what has produced the best results in the shortest timeframe for our patients.
Now that you have the excess pressure and overuse that led to the cause and continuation of your pain under control with your orthotics, it’s time to optimise the recovery process and work directly on the damaged area to stimulate healing and repair. We’re privileged to be able to do this via a number of treatment options that we have available, ranging from laser therapy to neurostimulation to dry needling and muscle work. This is particularly important for non-acute injuries that have been persisting for a month or longer, to restart the body’s immune and reparative response, which tends to become duller as injuries continue or are not treated effectively.
We prescribe childrens-specific orthotics, but again, only under circumstances where we know they will benefit them the most. We’ve detailed our children’s foot orthotics and how you can know if they are needed here.
Unlike gel pads that are marketed as ‘insoles’, ‘footbeds’ or ‘orthotics’ that are deceptively and incorrectly marketed as helping absolutely everyone with their foot pain, a pair of custom foot orthotics is only designed for the single person they were created for. More than this, they are created out of a genuine need and medical reasoning, by an experienced health professional. Think of the difference as the same difference between custom glasses from an optometrist, and those from the supermarket. They are not comparable.
