Please talk to me about children's orthotics.

[GeorgianMumto5]

I, Dd and Ds have varying degrees of hypermobility, none of us too bad. We also all have feet that pronate. Ds is the bendiest of us all and has the oddest feet. I have had problems with being hypermobile. Nothing awful, but I'd like the DC to avoid the problems I had as a teen and young adult, so I took them to the GP.

GP told me to buy paediatric orthotics online and said Orthaheel is good. I went away and looked them up but the choice was vast. Then I managed to get a free appointment with a podiatrist. He said dd doesn't need orthotics but advised on which type of shoes to buy. Ds definitely would benefit from some. He said to buy Vasyli, 3/4 in red, then to buy carboflex inserts when Ds is about 16 (he's currently 7).

So, once again I went off and looked it up. Vasyli are really hard to get hold of! I want to get some before we get school shoes.

Where do you get yours from? GP won't refer us because he is crap low-intervention.

By 'problems' I mean I was in pain and fell over a lot. The DC don't experience this, but neither did I, at their age. Ds scored 9/9 on the Beyton Test. (Is that the correct term?) Just realised I sounded like I am making a fuss over nothing, but I don't think I am.

Shamelessly bumping because I need your help.

Hi GMto5,

Both my dds wear insoles - the younger one has seriously pronating ankles and both have flat feet and get leg/foot pain without them, though the older one copes better these days.

We ended up going to a podiatrist practice that also makes insoles. For dd2 in particular, they have made a huge difference. She fell over a lot and had pain, even aged 3 - and couldn't run. She's had the insoles since she was 5, is now 6.5 and can walk miles with them in!

Our GP referred dd2, and the NHS said she needed insoles, but were so slow in producing them that we gave up and went private...

Thanks Elibean, much appreciated. My DC have flat feet to look at them, but if they stand on tiptoe the arches reappear. They do both complain of pains, but these appear to be muscular rather than joint pains, so I'm not in duly worried now but the way they stand and walk, especially Ds, just seems to suggest problems later down the line. I suspect they're not bad enough to need NHS intervention. Then again, if they were, my GP still wouldn't!