Prefabricated Orthotics
What are Orthotics?
At PridePlus Health, our podiatrists are experts in working through your foot and ankle complaints. We will work with you to get great outcomes. It could be running a PB in a marathon, walking the dog around the blog without pain, slowing down a progressive foot deformity or just being comfortable day-to-day. An underrated and useful tool to assist many of us with this is prefabricated orthotics or 'off the shelf orthotics'.
These devices, let’s call them 'prefab orthotics', are often light, flexible and comfortable products to optimise loading. For many of us, they can be used to take an overworked area of our foot, ankle or leg and tweak the loading enough to go from being in pain to pain-free.
Prefab orthotics have the benefit of being readily available and inexpensive to use. All our podiatry clinics stock a range of tried and tested devices and if prescribed by your podiatrist, the confidence that they will be a great option to address your issue.
Knowing that prefab orthotics, when prescribed by an expert PridePlus Health podiatrist for your individual concern will help, you might think why doesn’t everybody use a prefab orthotic?
Well, prefab orthotics have a shorter life span versus custom orthotics. Depending on usage, materials and bodyweight, you might be getting 6 to 18 months of life from your prefab orthotic where your custom device will give you 10+ years. Also, prefab orthotics are generalised in nature. They are fabricated with large numbers of the population in mind, which sounds great. But if you’re one of the many of us who sit outside the centre of the bell curve relating to foot posture and movements, you might find that there isn’t a mass-marketed prefab orthotic to suit your needs.
With so many different off-the-shelf or prefabricated orthotics around, and many gel innersoles marketed as an off the shelf orthotic too, it’s not fair to expect someone with pain or problems to know which is right for them.
The best option is to book in with an expert PridePlus Health podiatrist, get a plan in place and IF a prefabricated orthotic is part of it, be confident that it will be just right for you.
Grab your appointment with one of our Podiatrists HERE.
