What are Toe Braces?

Toe braces or splints are a type of footwear designed to correct various toe issues, such as bunions, hammertoes, turf toe, overlapping toes, fractures, and other abnormalities. Each toe problem has a specific type of brace made from unique materials and forms to address particular conditions. For example, silicone toe braces are used to separate overlapping toes.

Generally, these splints are there to help restore the proper health of your feet, proper leg and feet muscle development, and overall body balance and posture. They are a great alternative to other treatment methods such as surgery or wearing motion regulating slippers. Besides, they are less costly than the other toe correction methods.

Who Needs Toes Braces?

During birth, everyone is born with perfectly aligned toes. They are well spaced, making the toe end the widest part of the feet. But as you grow, your socks and shoes misalign the toes bring about issues like ingrown toes, overlapping toes, bunions, and hammered toes.

In most people, these toes problems are mild. They do not experience any pain or friction during motion. However, some people have severe toe problems that prevent wearing footwear or walking properly. They need splints to rectify such issues.

It is worth mentioning that splints are a form of rehabilitation that aims at restoring proper foot health. Therefore, anyone can wear toe braces to correct deformities brought forth by years of wearing typical footwear. In a nutshell, wearing toe braces aims to restore proper toe and foot postures.

Help Heal Toe and Foot Pain

Toe deformities can be very painful in some individuals depending on the degree of damage. The pain is so severe that the patient cannot walk in some cases. Such deformities affect your ability to use footwear which can be very limiting.

By wearing a toe brace, you will heal the foot correcting the motion issues. After a few months of wearing toe braces, most people can walk properly without pain.

Restore Foot Arch Support

Foot arch support is important for balancing and walking. It allows motion and balance by giving the body a balanced place to put on the weight.

Proper foot arch support relies heavily on well-spread toes and the ability of the body to rest on a flat surface. If the natural arch is lost, your ability to balance when moving around can be impacted. You’ll find it difficult to walk, run, dance, or make any movement that involves your feet.

Toes braces correct the first level of foot arch support, which is spreading the toes. They are designed to fit in between individual toes creating natural spaces between them. Over time, the foot regains the required toe-spread ratio restoring proper arch support.

Alleviate Ankle Sprains

Motion relies heavily on your ankle pronation or the natural foot response to shock and weight distribution on your feet. Walking, running, climbing, dancing, or jumping create some levels of shock on your ankle.

How your ankle responds to the shock depends on your toe distribution. When your toes are not properly aligned, you will experience excessive ankle pronation due to a weak foot support arch. Your ankles can respond to shock or weight distribution by caving inwards or bending outwards, a condition known as overpronation.

In a way, your foot permanently moves away from the proper shape to a new one.

Improper ankle pronation is caused by years of wearing typical footwear, which raises your heel, squeezes your toes towards each other, and arches them upwards. If that happens, you are likely to experience ankle sprains.

By wearing a toe brace, you help restore the natural toe conditions, thus alleviating overpronation. After a few months, your foot will regain proper shape eliminating ankle sprain issues.

Improve the Flow of Blood to the Heel

Unbeknownst to many people, foot care is important for proper blood flow to the heel. And foot care starts with proper toe alignment and correct pronation. Overpronation can cause poor blood flow resulting in inflammation and cell death on the sole of your feet. A common symptom of this condition is heel pain.

A toe brace can help eliminate this problem by helping you regain proper foot pronation. They do this by correcting the position of your metatarsal bones, alleviating tension in your foot. It betters blood circulation to your heel, thereby flushing out inflamed and dead cells.

Correct Sesamoid Bone Positioning

At the base of your biggest toe are two-minute bones known as sesamoid. Despite their small size, they are very effective in aiding tendons on that toe to transfer body weight from muscles at the lower part of your leg. These two bones are like your knee because they help your feet accommodate your body’s weight and shock from motion.

However, our footwear tampers with the correct positioning of these sesamoid bones.

The effects are so severe that, in some instances, these bones force themselves out of their grooves. When this happens, your ability to support your body weight and absorb shock greatly diminishes.

Rather than your big toe absorbing the weight, your foot spreads it all over, wearing out cartilage and other foot structures. You’ll experience sesamoiditis or pain, discomfort, inflammation, and fractures on your feet.

Toe braces help correct this problem by reversing the effects of wearing footwear. They align your big toe forcing the sesamoid bones to pop back to their original grooves. That restores proper foot function and initiates the helping process.

Restore the Body’s Stability

Strong and fully functional feet form a sound foundation for your body weight. They form a strong foundation for motion and the health of your bones. But that foundation relies heavily on the health of every part of your feet. If one area fails, it results in all other areas crumbling down. Most feet problems greatly affect the ankle and knees since these two joints handle shock and weight.

Toe braces help restore proper ankle and knee health by correcting toe misalignments.

One such area of concern is metatarsal alignment. By rectifying the positioning of these bones on your feet, ankle and knee balance is restored, eliminating pain and other issues associated with the metatarsal imbalance.

Improve Foot Muscle Development

Your foot has muscles starting from the toes to the heel. However, the development of these intrinsic muscles depends largely on your foot’s confinement. By wearing shoes often, you stall the development of these muscles.

By wearing toe braces, your proper toe position is recovered. This stimulated the development of the intrinsic muscles on your feet. These muscles grow and become stronger with time and constant use, improving your arch and stability.

You can help boost the development of the muscles by combining a corrective toe brace with foot strengthening exercises such as jogging, running, or lifting weights.