Many years ago, I struggled with foot pain. I had repeated bouts of plantar fasciitis and occasionally instances of gout. Many have described me as having a high threshold of pain, but for this, I suffered. The best way that I may describe the degree of pain: if you’re sitting down, but need to pee, you contemplate how long you can wait until you need to stand up and walk to the bathroom. It is that painful. I got custom (molded from my feet) insoles for my shoes. Every time I changed shoes, I’d meticulously take them out of one pair and put them in the other. Additionally, they didn’t work reliably enough; those insoles may have halved the number of occurrences.
I decided to try something completely different; I got a pair of Vibram Five Fingers. I took the plunge and started the minimalist shoes trend. They have incredibly thin soles, like 3mm thin. They force you to land on the balls of your feet. Though one feature that made them even more distinctive. As the name suggests, each shoe individually wraps each toe.